The baby bird sat at the edge of the nest, paralyzed with fear. His little talons clung to the bunch of mashed up sticks and feathers that had been the only home he had ever known. The nest had stopped being warm and cozy when his brothers and sisters flew away. It was hard, cold and smelly. His mother hadn’t stopped by with food for the entire day and he was hoarse from chirping out her name in hunger.
He knew that it was time to fly away, but he couldn’t bring himself to take the leap. It was just so high, terribly, terrifyingly high. He could hardly make out the ground below. Why hadn’t his parents chosen a nice low lying bush to make their nest? Now he was left with the difficult choice of plummeting to his death or starving.
With one last pitiful chirp, he closed his eyes tightly and flung himself out into the void. At first, he was falling straight down, plummeting to the death he’d imagined many times before. Then, without knowing exactly how, his wings started flapping and the awful sensation of falling disappeared. He was flying!
At first it was a bumpy ride, then he figured out how to work with the wind instead of against it. He began to glide through the air, buffeted up by the gentle breeze. He came to a beautiful field of wildflowers and swooped down to feast on a cloud of mayflies. His belly now full, he started to enjoy the ride and test out his new skill. He soared into the brilliant blue sky as high as he could go, singing with joy for all the world to hear.
This post was inspired by the Sunday Scribblings prompt: Soar.
I'm Chefdruck
Freelance Writer, Blogger, Book Lover. If you'd like me to review a book or product, please contact me at vdruckman at hotmail dot com.
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Chefdruck Writes by Vanessa Druckman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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6 comments:
I love the story and your empathy with that little bird. It's also a wonderful story for children.
Very cute!
I can just imagine how that bird sang... a joyful noise is a beautiful one! :)
Great story - it made me smile. Well, except when the bird plumeted out of the nest - then I think I gasped. ;)
that's lovely! How quickly birds learn that flying is what they're made for...
Beautiful. Have you read "Are you by mother" by Dr Suess? Its a beautiful story just like this one.
This reminds me of the time my husband brought home a baby bird that had fallen from its nest. We were determined to save it, so called up the Humane Society to learn how to be its mama. We discovered:
1. It needed to be fed a thick, soupy mess of rice cereal and dog food.
2. This must be fed, via syringe, every 20 minutes.
3. It needed a nest, which we constructed out of scrap rags and a shoe box.
What no one told us was that about every 10 minutes this baby bird would spastically throw its rear end over the "nest" and defecate.
In between nursing my baby, I would give the bird a shot of glop and clean its nest. We took the bird to the beach. My husband carried the bird to work and parked it under his computer. But within a week we were exhausted, admitted defeat and abandoned the bird on Humane Society's doorstep.
I'm glad your baby bird story had a happy ending!
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