A Bird Named Peep
It was mid-summer, and I was pulling weeds in the back garden. Birds were singing crazily in the air, and a warm breeze was blowing through the trees. As I walked into the screened porch, I could hear a nest of baby birds chirping in an opening under the eaves.
The next day, Craig and I were still working out in the yard. Coming into the house for lunch, he mentioned that there was a nest just outside the porch beside the door. “And you know, I haven’t seen the mama bird. Have you?”
“No,” I reluctantly answered and sighed.
I hauled the ladder out of the garage and propped it against the side of the house. I crawled up and peeked into the space. One little baby lifted its wobbly, fuzzy head. The other lay lifeless.
I climbed down and went into the house. Going in the house, I grabbed a wire basket that held my garden gloves and snippers. Lining it with a soft dishcloth, I walked back outside, went back up the ladder, and gently lifted out the weak, grey baby. Tufts of fluff fluttered in the breeze. Its closed eyes seemed to squint as it dropped its closed beak onto the cloth.
I immediately went out to the garage and grabbed the long, pointed garden shovel. Purposefully, I walked to the vegetable bed and began digging in the back corner. I quickly unearthed a couple of small, healthy worms.
Once in the house, I jostled the basket, and as the baby lifted its head and instinctively opened its beak, I dropped the smallest morsel into his mouth. The second worm followed quickly.
I went back out and dug up more worms. Three, four, five. It took longer than I thought. But that would hold us through the night.
The next day, I went back out to dig more worms. It took an hour to get just a couple. This wasn’t going to work.
Did you know that you can buy little red worms for fishing at the local Kwik Trip? Pretty quick and painless.
So, we fed, petted, and talked to the birdie. We named him “Peep.”
Peep grew, and his feathers came in. I stroked his neck and rubbed the waxy keratin sheaths off the feathers growing in on his head.
After a couple of weeks, he was feathered and looked like a real bird. It was time to get him flying. So Craig and I took him out in the yard and gently passed him back and forth. After a couple of days, we were about 5 feet apart as we tossed our baby between the two of us.
Then it was the weekend. Saturday. It was family day at Craig’s guard unit. We would be gone all day. So, we decided to put Peep’s basket out on the porch. It was open on the top. He could fly away if he wanted. It was up to him.
When we got home that day at about 5, I expectantly walked through the house and out the patio doors.
No Peep.
No soft kitchen towel.
No metal garden basket.
Looking all around the porch and off into the bushes, I searched for any evidence of our lost babe. Craig came out onto the porch, and we both puzzled the situation together.
After just a couple of minutes, our neighbor, Sheri, came through the backyard. “You guys are home!” she said. “Peep is over at our house. Come on over.”
We immediately walked through the woods between our two houses. Friends gathered on lawn chairs and on the deck at the round picnic table. Apparently, early in the afternoon, as the festivities were in full swing, a small baby bird came out of nowhere and landed in the center of the lunch. He stood there a moment and then ran toward one of the women. She screamed and scooted back in her chair.
The squeals and shrieks brought Sheri out of the house to see what the commotion was all about. “Oh my god, that’s Peep!”
Sheri scooped Peep up and was bringing him back home when she realized we weren’t home. So she grabbed his basket that she saw on the porch and returned to her home with him. He was no worse for the wear and was happy to get his fill of several juicy worms for dinner that evening.
The next day, Sunday, was a similar situation. We needed to be away from the house for the day. I gave Peep his breakfast—worms—and placed his basket on the porch. Later that afternoon, we returned home, and Peep had fledged.
We never saw him again.
Come to find out, he was a “bad” kind of bird called a cowbird. The mama bird chooses a nice-looking nest. She destroys or knocks one or more of the existing eggs out and lays her eggs in the nest (for our Peep, we think it was probably a robin’s nest). Mama Robin doesn’t even realize this has occurred. When all the babies hatch, the robin mama raises the cowbird chicks. They are actually called a parasitic species.
But parasitic or not, Peep was a fun little guy. Memories of him, and telling this story, make me smile. In the end, what matters is the joy we found in nurturing him, and the unexpected bond that brought us a lot of happiness during those summer days.
Even the smallest creatures can leave a lasting impact on our hearts.
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