I remember when I was sitting in my old nest with my babies. Their feathers shone bright blue and they were beautiful. A mother bluebird like me certainly had something to be proud of! We were having earthworms, which I caught. Julie, one of my babies, accidentally dropped a worm out of her beak and it fell in the nest. She clawed at it, trying to pick it up, but couldn’t.
Then, all of a sudden, the nest began to unweave itself. The pieces fell in the lake! Julie tried to catch them, but she couldn’t fly. It was I who caught her. Water splashed in our faces, as the last of the pieces landed, and blinded us. We fell in the lake and nearly drowned. We flapped our wings vigorously. Finally, we were above the water.
I breathed in the sweet air as I flew back to the nest, Julie still in my arms. My other babies were staring in awe at us. Julie seemed to be shocked. She was frozen with fright for about three days. I had to shove some worms in her beak and force them down her throat to get her to eat something. Getting her to drink something was another story. I tried and tried, but the poor baby was too traumatized from the experience. Every time I even tried to go near her with water, she backed away, even if I had the water in my beak and was going to drink it myself. Julie’s brother, Gregory, had some water on the fourth day after the incident, and he took Julie in his wings. Then, he opened her beak and poured the water in it. Julie thought it tasted so good and was sorry she was ever afraid of water.
Now that she wasn’t afraid anymore, I decided that I could leave my babies for awhile to see if I could find new materials for the nest. I flew and flew as fast as I could because I didn’t want to leave my babies alone for too long. My eyes were as keen as a telescope as I flew through the sky. Finally, I spotted some materials! They were the pieces to our old nest.
On the way back to the tree where our nest had once been, I heard something. It was some kind of creature of some sort. When it came into view I realized that it was a person that was a he. The person was a hunter and he had one of those long, loud sticks of death to prove it. Hunters were the most feared predators in the forest and they were the ones who caused populations to drop slightly and sometimes even dramatically. For instance, if they shot too many deer, the wolves would have less of that type of prey. Anyway, he took that long stick of death of his and . . . Guess what? . . . He pointed it at me. Then, he pressed that little button and shot me! I was lucky that he only got my wings though. What wasn’t so lucky was that he got one of my down feathers. I was going to have lots of trouble flying! He decided that I wasn’t worth the trouble to try and shoot again, so he walked off. I struggled to make it to the tree. I thought that it would be too dangerous if I tried to walk on the ground. There would have been wolves and foxes lurking in the shadows of the forest. The pain in my wing got greater, but I carried on. When I got to the nest my babies gathered around me.
“What happened?”, Gregory and Julie asked at the same time. I didn’t answer.
“What happened?”, Bailey, the oldest of my babies echoed.
“Are you okay?”, asked Gregory in a concerned voice.
“Gregory, start reweaving the nest for me, please, will you?”, I chirped. “Bailey, go find the berries that help wounds to heal. Gregory, will you also watch Julie, please.”
Gregory started to weave the nest and Bailey left to find the berries. After a few hours, Gregory finished weaving the nest. Bailey still hadn’t returned. I put Julie in the nest. Gregory decided to go look for the berries because I was getting weaker and Bailey still hadn’t returned.
The night after Gregory left a wolf came by our nest.
“Come on down birds. I won’t hurt you,” he pleaded. “I have some food for you,” he added.
I could see a sly look on his face. He had a sneaky gleam in his eyes. His lips curled connivingly. I had a bad feeling about that!
Julie started to fly down from the tree. My babies could fly now, I’d taught them how a few days before. I tried to stop her, but couldn’t. She flew right into the jaws of that wolf! He was about to bite her when Gregory came flying above the wolf. He grabbed his sister out of the wolf’s mouth. Then, he headed for the nest, Julie still in his claws. They’d made it! But, wait! The wolf jumped up to our nest and almost got me! Luckily, the nest fell on top of him, though! He decided to leave.
When we were sure the wolf was out of sight Gregory flew to the ground, picked up the nest and put it back on the branch on the tree. Actually, the tree I’ve been talking about was a bush and the wolf didn’t have to jump really high to get to our nest.
Gregory had the berries and fed them to me. It took about a month for me to recover. When I did, I headed off to find Bailey. I flew for days and worried about my babies the whole time. I hoped that nest was strong enough to protect them, again. Soon I found Bailey. She was lying on the ground, hurt bad. I quickly picked her up and started for the nest. When we got there I gave her some leftover berries. There weren’t enough though and winter was on its way. I searched and searched for berries, but couldn’t find any. The poor dear was getting weaker and weaker. There was nothing I could do. She was fading away. You know what happened next, though? I found out from a robin that I had woven my nest out of sticks from berry bushes. The juices would still be on them and they were the parts of the berry that healed. I used some of the sticks to cure Bailey. After about a year she made a full recovery. I met a nice male bluebird and he agreed to help me raise my babies. I found my first true love! Actually, he was my second true love. I met my first true love after I made that nest. We got married and I laid the eggs that held my babies. Shortly after, he got shot by a hunter, though. He wasn’t as lucky as me, though. He had been shot in the chest and the berries couldn’t help him. I remember the last words the poor dear said to me.
“Take good care of my babies and be happy for me, will you, please, poor dear”, he chirped.
The poor dear took his last breath after that, in the nest where he told me those words and the words before.
“I love you, poor dear”, he said in a faint voice.
Even now my heart still throbs with as much pain as his heart did that day. But, now I found another true love and my babies have a new dad. It was going to be a new beginning for us that some of us would have never made it to if it wasn’t for that nest.
