A Healthy Diet for the Kids.

I’m not talking about Britain’s human underclass this time, but about Mrs B. She’s the lady blackbird I wrote about recently – the one who got into a fight with another lady blackbird and ended up with feathers missing. They’re still missing, and the feathers she does have aren’t in very good condition.

She has a nest now. (I wish I could say that it’s in the hazel thicket, as Sam did up on Mount Doom, but it isn’t. It’s in the forsythia bush at the side of my little front porch.) And the eggs have obviously hatched because she’s been taking food in for a few days.

We had rain all afternoon and into the evening yesterday, and I watched her flying in with food for the kids. She looked so bedraggled, poor thing. She looked more like a drowned rat than a blackbird, and that isn’t right. Adult birds fend off water pretty well, because feathers in good condition are oiled and the water runs off.

And so I worried about her all last night. I feared she might get chilled and not make it, as chicks with un-oiled baby down do if the parents don’t shelter them from the rain. Well, she did make it. She was charging around as usual this morning, eating for herself and bringing food for the wee’uns.

And I’ve noticed something interesting. She feeds ravenously on the oats I put out when she’s eating for herself, but I’ve only ever seen her bring earthworms for the chicks. That’s what I call responsible parenting, and Mrs B is what I regard as a right little heroine.