Hedgehog and Birds

Recently we've had a rush of nature in our backyard. A couple of weeks ago, we saw a hedgehog scurrying around on two different occasions. It was cool because I'd never seen a hedgehog in real life before. Here's a picture of a hedgehog that I found. I didn't take a picture because it happened so fast and I was so enthralled. He was very cute!

Photo courtesy of doeni.gov.uk

Our next visitor, well visitors were a family of birds that made their home in one of our trees. Over the past few weeks we'd noticed a bird building a nest in the tree. Then a while after the nest was finished, we noticed the mother flying back and forth continuously to feed her babies. The nest was perfectly positioned at a spot in the tree where it didn't move very much at all, even on windy days. Luckily for us, there was a small opening in the foliage, so we could see the nest from our window. Here's a picture of the view outside our window. I didn't want to get too close and scare away the mother, so I took this from inside. In the opening, you can just about see the nest.

So, we watched the mother go back and forth for several days and then one day the babies flew away. We didn't get to see them all leave though...we only saw one, but we were glad to see anything happen :-) We saw the very last one leave the nest and he/she made quite an impression. We were watching television when we all of a sudden we heard a tap on the window. We looked just in time to see the little bird smack into the window and fall to the ground. Don't worry...he was fine! He got back up and flew to another tree in the yard and then flew around a bit more. We lost sight of him for a while and then we noticed that he had perched on the tree across from nest where he was born. Here's a grainy photo of him having a rest.

He ended up sitting there into the night and he snuggled down into his feathers and went to sleep soon after I took this photo. By the next morning he had flown away and started his life! It was really cool to see him take his "first steps" out into the world!

Now the nest sits empty in our tree. Other birds have dropped by for a look as if they're sizing up an abandoned house. It's fun to watch. Things have quieted down lately, but hey, maybe the hedgehog will visit us again. I'll keep my eyes open...