The Robin Makes our Day

This morning it was dry here up to lunchtime, with little bursts of sunshine. Then rain dampened our spirits somewhat. But we wrapped ourselves up and found it had stopped when we stepped out to walk Jade along Holes Bay On the way back we heard a burst of beautiful birdsong from above our heads. We looked up and there was a tiny robin perched on a skimpy branch and singing it's little heart out. Made us think that spring must be just around the corner.

I got this pic by Paul Dickson from Wikimedia Commons. This robin looks all puffed up as they do sometimes. Ours today looked a lot leaner, but that didn't stop his song.

Sad Story; Happy Ending?

pic by Keven Law at Wikimedia

Recently my son came back to live with me. He and his girlfriend had shared a flat in a rural area. She had some low paid work but he couldn’t get any work. They couldn’t pay their rent and got evicted. She’s now living with her mother and he is with me, an hour’s drive away. But of course they have no cars. That’s the first sad bit.

The day after he arrived here, he started job hunting and signed on with various agencies. The following week he started working on a building site not far from here. This work will only last until it is finished, but hopefully then the agency can send him somewhere else. He’s just had his first pay cheque. That’s the first happy bit.

The construction company is building an extension to a school and my son is helping to fit windows. One day he came home and said he had found a robin’s nest full of baby birds inside the area being built. The parent birds were very agitated because of the building work getting closer and closer to them, but they did come in now and then to feed their young, who were of course screaming for food all the time. He thought if the nest wasn’t moved the babies would not survive. He told the site manager but didn’t know what was going to happen. That’s the next sad bit.

The next day when he came home he said that the young birds had jumped down out of the nest. The lads on the site joined forces to catch them and put them outside where their frantic parents soon shepherded them out of harm’s way. Sadly one didn’t make it because it went into a hole in the brickwork and they couldn’t get it out. This all happened at the end of the day just before everyone left; perhaps the parent birds would have found it and coaxed it out before morning. So hopefully, that’s the happy ending.