Baby Cardinal Birds

Since we had birds while I was growing up, I've seen baby birds many times.  What I had never experienced was seeing baby birds that were not pets or in a cage.  That is, until this month.  Living here in little Schulenburg, TX, we see a lot of God's creatures roaming around our house.  I had seen a red cardinal bird flying around several times since we moved here.  One day, we noticed a bird starting to gather twigs and such to begin building a nest.  This bird had red wings, a brown body, and a brown head.  She was a pretty bird, but I did not realize what type of bird she was.  It wasn't until I saw her beautiful, fully red mate that I realized she was a female cardinal bird.  They decided a good place for a nest was in our carport on Brandon's bike that is hanging by a rather large nail by its back wheel.  Since Brandon has replaced the tube 3 times now and still keeps getting a flat, he decided that if the birds would like to use his bike, he would allow them and take a break from it himself.  So, that is how we ended up with a cardinal bird nest in our carport.

We watched as they built the nest.  They would each bring twigs and sticks to it.  It kept growing day by day.  (It didn't occur to me at the time to take pictures of the nest building process.)  One day, momma bird was finally sitting in it!  She had laid her eggs!  That's when it became exciting for me.  I was finally going to get to see firsthand how God created a bird to tend to her nest and babies!  She wouldn't leave the nest very often, but when she did, I began attempting to take pictures.  I took them quickly to make sure as to not disturb the eggs or especially the nest.  I did not want to knock it down, nor did I want to get attacked by a momma bird.  Just after I finally got a picture of the four little blue-tinted eggs, they began hatching.  I never did get a great picture of the eggs, but I did get one.  They are so little!  As they began hatching, I took a picture and very short video of them every day.

Before posting the pictures, I have to share the bad news.  One of the babies did not survive.  In the pictures it is in, it is the lighter skinned one that is usually in the top left.  I have no idea what was wrong with it, but it seemed to not do well from the beginning.

Here are the pictures of their progression in growing! (I made them small in hopes of quicker loading and to make it not so long.  I believe if you click on the picture, it will pull up a larger one for you to see if you prefer.)

6/11/2012 Four little eggs.

6/14/2012 Hatching begins! 

6/14/2012 Three babies hatched.

6/14/2012 Fourth egg cracked.

6/15/2012 Four ugly little babies!

6/16/2012

6/17/2012

6/18/2012

6/18/2012 So cute when they started getting large enough for their head to stick out. This one looks like it's laughing.

6/19/2012 Eyes are opened, but not shown here.

6/20/2012 One baby lost by this picture.

6/21/2012

6/22/2012 My last picture of them.

 My family headed out toward west Texas for a family reunion on June 22.  I was hoping like crazy that the babies would still be there.  Seemed to me they had quite a ways to go before getting enough feathers to fly.  Turns out, I was very wrong.  We returned about 2:30 am the morning of June 25 and they were gone.  I took a picture of the nest then, but it wasn't very good since it was dark out.  I took this one to see what the nest looked like after it had served it's purpose. 

6/26/2012 Nothing left but an empty nest. 

Here's a few other shots I took of this beautiful process.

Shot of momma bird's choice of nest location.

 There were times when momma bird (who I would just call 'momma') would just sit there after bringing her babies food.  She would look at them, clean them, and seem like she was on lookout for them.  She really couldn't fit in the nest anymore, but would perch on the side.  I found it amazing that the nest never fell, even as the birds grew and momma would join them.  There were times when daddy bird would come join as well with more food, though he was very shy and would leave when I came out.

Tending to her babies.

 After seeing the nest empty, I was very sad that I had missed their last days.  As my first day back continued, I realized that I heard the now familiar calling of a cardinal bird rather close.  I went outside to see if I could find the bird calling and saw this little guy.  I quickly realized this was one of the babies.  He doesn't have all his feathers in quite yet.  I saw this one and later while outside, I saw a male and a female bird land nearby in the backyard.  They were both the babies I had watched from an egg.  I don't know what the third one is (male or female), but it made me so happy to see them still close.  I have been watching them all fly around our house for two days and I love it!  Isn't he beautiful?!

6/25/2012 One baby bird now on his own.

Every time Sophie and I would go outside, we would wave to the baby birds and to momma.  Sophie doesn't realize they are gone I guess because she's still waving at them.  It's very cute, but people may start to think she's crazy if she keeps waving at a bike.  Haha! 

It was such a blessing to see these little birds grow into the beautiful creature God created them to be.  If there is a next time I get to experience this so close by, I hope to catch the ending of their time in the nest!  For now, I believe Brandon would like to use his bicycle again.