Nature at Work

  
This week I have been thinking a lot about a baby robin I came across while taking Penny for a walk.


Last Friday morning I was walking Penny in the park behind our apartment when I noticed a small robin hopping away from us as we approached.  Upon closer inspection, it was apparent that this robin was still a chick, although it had grown too big for its nest.  As Penny tugged to get near the bird, the robin hopped across the sidewalk and into the street next to the park, and I realized the bird was too small to get out of the street as it could not yet fly proficiently.  Picking up Penny to make sure she didn't try to greet the bird with a chomp, I coaxed it towards an alleyway so that it could get out of the street and back up into the park area.  At that point it's mother arrived, sticking close to its baby while giving frequent tweets to encourage Penny and I to keep away.  With the chick reunited to its mother and back on relatively safe ground, Penny and I resumed our walk and continued on our way.

Later in the morning, as I was watching Penny on the patio behind our apartment, I noticed the chick and its mother had moved just outside our back gate to a group of shrubs and trees next to our car.  The baby robin was sitting in the shrubs peeping away while the mother would fly off, find some food, and return to feed its young.  I enjoyed watching this pattern of events for some time before going back inside.  Throughout the rest of the day, I would look for the two robins as I'd let Penny outside, finding them moving down the alley bit by bit until late in the afternoon when the chick was nowhere to be found.  I thought I had found the mother, who would sit on the fencepost next to our apartment and continue tweeting at me, but that night I worried about the baby robin as it still could not fly and was reliant upon its mother for food.

I shared my concerns with Aubree, who encouraged me to trust that nature would work its course and that the chick would soon grow up to be able to live on its own.  Sure enough, two days later, Aubree spotted a young robin in the trees who was being fed by its mother, and she pointed it out to me.  I was excited to recognize the young bird as the same chick that I had helped a couple days before, and the rest of that day I would come outside to find the two once again sticking close to each other and spending most of their time near and around our backyard. 

My story of being introduced to the baby robin has a happy ending, as I saw that the chick could now indeed fly (although not as gracefully as its mother), and was starting to hunt for some worms on its own too.  Over the course of this past week, I keep seeing the two reappear from time to time, with the chick easily recognizable due to its high-pitched chirp and its mottled plumage that is just starting to get its typical robin coloring.  Soon enough I trust that it will be a strong and independent bird who will someday be caring for its own young.  The experience of watching the two birds has been an exciting one for me that is a great example of God's amazing handiwork, the precious bond between parents and their young, and the fragility and resiliency of life.  Thank God for His gift of life!

A picture that closely resembles the chick I came across can be found in the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Robin