June 2008
garden@home, Davao City
First picture of the chicks that hatched only days after I posted Bird's Nest. The second picture is a better shot of the parent. It became more hesitant to leave the nest once the eggs hatched. If you look closely at the first picture, not all eggs have hatched yet.
I'm sad to write though that only days after taking this picture as well, the parent abandoned the nest. I think the chicks died one night when it was raining hard and very cold. When i first took a peak that day, I thought that the parents have just transfered their babies to another nest as I couldn't see any sign of movement inside the nest. Minutes after checking the nest, I saw the parents come back, both of them this time. One was inside the nest and the other standing guard outside of it. It didn't mind at all that I was just a few feet away from them. I think they went back to check one last time if the chicks are still alive. After which, they flew off and never came back. When I saw this, I knew that there must be something wrong with the chicks. And my suspicions were correct, the chicks were already dead.
The day before this happened, on another nest up high on our mango tree, a more grown up chick almost ready to fly off fell from its nest. Our helpers in the house found the helpless chick in our garden and may have unwittingly, although with good intentions, took it and brought it back to the house. The parents of this chick were so aggressive early in the morning, chirping away and flying all over the place around our house. This prompted our helpers to return the chick to the garden. But since it still couldn't fly off, we were worried that stray cats would spot it and have it for a meal. Eventually though, after a couple of days, we think it was able to finally fly away.
I'm writing about this new chick's story here as well because I'm wondering if its angry parents had something to do with the death of the new born chicks. Maybe, for some reason, they thought it was their chicks and when they found out they weren't, they killed them. I need a CSI! (SOCO, Scene of the crime operative, for us here in the Philippines)
I just came back from another trip. I'll check the nest tomorrow. I can't help but feel a bit sad.
