Bad news

It was bound to happen. Nature isn't just about the flowers. There are thorns too. Literally this time though. I have been saving baby birds all day today. They would fall out of the nest and I would scoop them off the ground with DB's sand toy shovel and put them back in the nest. Turns out that these parent birds just didn't understand the consequences of having so many babies. Their little home is simply not big enough to hold them all, and what was initially a brilliant place for their nest to keep their eggs safe has turned into a very dangerous for babies.

Now for the really bad news, and I have to tell you that even I, insensitive Amanda have shed a few tears over this, so those of you who are more sensitive than me (well, I guess that means just about ALL of you) beware. A baby fell out of the nest and got wedged between the two largest stems of this rosebush and the nest. I have spent much time this afternoon examining the nest to see if there was a way I could save this little one, but anything that I could think of would only result in pressing him even harder against the thorns. He tried as hard as he could to crane his neck up above the nest to see his siblings, but nobody noticed, and when Mom or Dad landed, they would stand right above him, seeming not to see him either. I think that I have started humanizing these birds way too much, and have started imagining if they were human babies, and this was a real human family. Much to my dismay, I have had to watch this little one die right before my eyes. DB even had to comfort me and told me that he would be okay, and we could bury him with leaves and sticks. I don't know that I will even be able to get to him to bury him without significantly hurting myself or hurting the nest or even the other birds.

So, nature goes on, and I know this is not the first time something like this has ever happened, but this time it happened right in front of my eyes in real life, and that makes it different. The thorn and the rose. The closer you get, the bigger the thorns seem to be and the more imperfect the rose is.