For the Birds

 One of the things that we have really enjoyed as a family this spring has been seeing two nests appear near our house.

The first nest I found in the hanging plant I have on the front porch when I was watering my plants. Very soon after we spotted our nest, a dove laid two eggs in it.

Momma Dove was there practically 24/7 in the nest. Papa Dove was always around but usually on the roof. Unfortunately, only one baby survived. Momma bird would sit right on top of it! I guess she thought she was hiding it.

It took a long time (it seemed like) for our first baby bird to leave the nest. Many days we saw it sitting alone there and we kept expecting it to leave. Then, finally, one evening we found our baby in the flowerbed instead of the nest! That was the last time we saw Jewel (Evie named the whole family. The parents were Devin & Gina)

Our second nest was spotted by Eric in the backyard inside the trellis he built for my Rangoon Creeper. This nest was built by Cardinals. Soon, we had three little speckled eggs

Not long after we saw THIS!!! 

Mommy & Daddy Cardinal have been busy. We have especially noticed daddy feeding the babies a lot. Shasta, our dog, never even knew about the front porch nest but she is quite aware of this one. Fortunately, she can't reach anyone. Here is a picture from just this morning. I saw one active baby. I'm not sure about the other two. Evie has named them Rock, Paper & Scissors :D

**UPDATE**

Our baby birds are out of the nest. Eric went out last night and one was hanging out inside the trellis and the other two were gone.

This morning we are pretty sure they are actually still in the yard somewhere because mama Cardinal is still hanging around chasing off any other birds that come into the yard.

This is almost too much excitement for Shasta. She wants to go out there! But, we have seen her mistakenly attack a baby bird before. She doesn't understand why it doesn't want to play. So, she will be staying inside.