It's like clockwork. Each spring, I wander out to the driveway one morning and find myself under attack. For reasons that defy my understanding, each and every spring a bird builds a nest in the trees between our patio and driveway. Every year the bird acts surprised that there are humans nearby, but she sticks around anyway and lays eggs. And then yells at me every day for being near her nest.
Seriously. Every year. Sometimes more than once.
The trees aren't particularly tall - maybe 6 or 7 feet - so everything about it is odd. But FANTASTIC. We get a front row seat as the she lays her eggs, the eggs hatch, and the babies grow up and fly away.
Mila, of course, LOVES everything about the tradition. Her sister may be crazy about animals, but Mila is even worse. She loves absolutely every creature and she loves baby creatures twice. She "Awwwws" every time she sees a newborn bird, which is weird because they're hideous at first. It takes weeks for them to be cute.
They're cute in her eyes from day 1.
We check on the birds every morning. The mother is going to yell at me for existing, so I might as well earn that yelling by poking my nose in the tree and seeing what's going on. Mila joins in on this whole thing. It's pure joy.
This year the babies were robins. It turns out that robins grow up faster than some of our previous squatters. They were born on May 2nd.
And today they were in the midst of flying away forever when Mila and I checked on them.
We stayed for a few minutes to watch as each of the three babies gathered up the courage to jump. One of the three was gone instantly while the other two struggled a bit, meandering their way down the driveway and around the shrubs next to the house. Momma bird watched and yelled the whole time. Eventually she calmed down but only after her babies figured out how to use those wings and fly.
But Mila.
Mila was SOBBING. She was so very sad that her baby birds flew away. She stayed upset all the way to school and then picked up on her sad mood again later in the evening.
The child was legitimately devastated that the baby birds left the nest.
In five years, her big sister is going to leave the nest. If her feelings about baby birds she just met are any indication, HOOBOY IS IT GOING TO BE ROUGH.