There are two chicks on my balcony

Update from my previous blog entry about the birds building the nest on my balcony. The nest was built pretty fast in about 4 days, after which the birds seemed to disappear, until one day I saw a familiar beak sticking out of the nest.

Laying/Incubating the Eggs

I knew that the eggs had hatched when one morning, I didn't see the mother bird in the nest. So I took a closer look and saw the beak of the chick sticking out.

Closeup of the Nest

And sure enough, during the day I see the two parent birds flying to the nest, I hear the hungry chirps of the chicks as they bring them food.

Father Feeding the Chicks

Mother Feeding the Chicks

Closeup of the Mother

Closeup of the Father

Off to find more food

The two parents fly back and forth the whole day to find and bring food back to feed their chicks.

This is where I have to stand to take the photos.

One thing this has taught me is patience. As the opening of the nest is facing out of my balcony, I have to take the photos from the window in the bathroom. And as the hungry chicks devour the food their parents bring them, each stopover lasts less than 10 seconds. So I have to stand on the chair in the bathroom, holding my hand up with the camera sticking out of the window, patiently waiting for the parent bird to fly in. As I can't look out the window, I have to rely on the chirping of the chicks to tell me when the parent bird is there. And if I'm too slow, it is another 5-10 minutes of waiting before the next feed. So I stand there praying that the birds will be able to find food quickly.

New Neighbours

This weekend, I was blessed with an encounter with 2 soon-to-be parents. On Saturday afternoon, these 2 yellow birds started flying to my balcony, and entertaining me with their chirping and gymnastics on my laundry line.

I was wondering why they came repeatedly to my balcony, when I saw one of the birds bringing some sort of fibre or grass and trying to attach it to the line. Then I knew that they were trying to build a nest. But try as they might, they were not successful, the strips kept falling to the floor. Evening came, and the birds did not return.



To my joy, the birds were back on Sunday morning, when I came back to my room at 8am after breakfast. They were chirping away and still trying to build the nest. I wished I could stay in my room to enjoy their company, but we were having the Seminary Open House, so I had to go and meet the visitors and introduce the seminary to them.

Imagine my surprise when I came back to my room at lunchtime, to see that they had ingeniously used a clothes-peg on the line as an anchor, and started to build their nest around it. Looks like I will be having constant visitors and entertainment in the coming days. Praise the Lord for this wonderful blessing and encounter with His creation.



But like the story about good luck, bad luck that I wrote about once before, this weekend I suffered a small loss. I dropped my camera, during the open house. And though it didn't seem like that hard a knock, it is not able to take any more photos. Luckily, I was able to take out the last few photos I took of the birds and the nest. Now I just have to take photos with the camera on my phone, or borrow a camera from one of the brothers.

But then again, maybe not bad luck, but good luck. Maybe its a sign to get a new camera, or to detach, since lent is coming. Hmm...

One of my brother seminarians mentioned that now I can't use my laundry line to hang my clothes to dry. But I guess its a small price to pay. What's a little inconvenience compared to this gift of encountering God's creation at work. I wonder how many eggs and baby birds God will bless me with.

Praise the Lord for this wonderful blessing.