VISITORS TO THE SECRET GARDEN

First order of business - I have now gone over 100 followers and to all of you, I sing your praises and appreciate you all from the bottom of my heart.

Picture taken without flash

The Captain took this picture when he found the little babies outside the garage on our driveway before the sun came up.  He picked them up and put them in the Secret Garden, as we think their nest is in the big holly tree that overhangs the Garden.

Picture taken with flash

Dialog:

Captain:  "Whoa, where did you come from?"

Babies:  "Are you our Daddy?  Do you have any worms for us?"

I have always called these birds, Blue Jays.  They are a very obnoxious bird, in my opinion, with their loud squawks. They complain about everything.  They come into the gazebo and poop on the cushions.  They are very forward. But, as with all babies, their's are very cute.

 I learned this morning, coincidently, from the newspaper, that we do not have Blue Jays in California.  They only reside east of the Rockies.  What we have are called Stellar Jays, which have a Mohawk haircut, and really are quite pretty to look at, and Scrub Jays, which look just like their name, Scrubby!

This is the Stellar Jay and who, I believe, is the babies' mama or possibly, the daddy.  

I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures. I took them through the screen door.  I was afraid it would scare them if I opened the door.  I didn't know, at this time, that the Captain had already rescued them once.

They perched on the branches of the wisteria vine for quite some time before one of them flew onto the top of the fence.  It took him awhile to make sure his wings would take him where he wanted to go.

Can you believe how tall he looks when he stretched his legs and wings?

He finally made it, but Little Sister wasn't so lucky.  She sat on the branch for a long time afterwards and when she finally tried, she fluttered down to the ground, and I couldn't get another picture of her.

Brother finally made it to the other side of the fence and found another perch but now they were both in Buddy's yard!  And he was out there but, luckily he was sound asleep in the shade so he didn't even know they were there. He is a bird dog, after all, but not much of a watchdog!

I had things to do so went about my business and didn't check back until later in the day, and would you believe, Brother (I think) was back on the same wisteria perch he started on.  I say Brother because he seemed to be the stronger of the two and more eager to take chances.

Finally, as I was watching, he fluffed himself up and flew up towards the holly tree.  That was the best I had seen him do.

We didn't see any more of them and thought that the visit was over, and this morning the adult birds were squawking away from the top of our back fence, looking over into the neighbor's back yard, so I think they are still on the quest of looking for their lost babies.

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Fast forward to today....

Look who's back!  I chanced opening the door and got a pretty good shot.

I think this is Little Sister again, as she hopped around for awhile from place to place without much energy.

All of a sudden she saw something familiar above her...

"Mama, Mama" 

or possibly,

"Daddy, Daddy"

"Do you have any worms for me?"

And off she flew to the top of the gazebo.

Since we hadn't seen Big Brother for awhile, we hoped that he hadn't fallen to any harm, but as we looked up, there they both were, reunited.

It's funny, when you are all grown and settled, how easily you forget how hard it was to leave the nest....Judy

I know it was the robin who first showed the way into the Secret Garden, but, I must admit, I couldn't help looking over my shoulder for Mary Lennox.

I'm sharing this little tale with:

Wow Us Wednesday