Pray for the poor birdies...

It's official. Matt and I are total a-holes. Why, you ask? Let me share a little story...

Yesterday we spent ALL day outside working in the yard. A few days before I had relocated our hanging ferns on our porch to sit in the sun on the patio. Towards the end of the day, I was pruning the ferns in preparation for putting them back on the porch. As I was clearing away the dead stuff, I came across a hunk of "brush." I tossed it the pile of clippings and weeds we still had left to throw away. When I looked at it from another angle, I saw it was actually a nest. I then picked it up, and showed it to my darling husband. "Look sweetie, a bird nested in my fern!" He comes over, inspects it, and says, "cool." We then threw it back in to the pile of clippings. GASP!! Then we tossed the pile into a garbage bag and put it in the garage. Why didn't we put it on the side yard with the other trash? Or take it to the curb with the other 3 bags of clippings we'd amassed during the day? Beats me.

So this morning I go into the garage to get the cleaning supplies for the cleaning ladies, and I hear something. A little squeaky noise. I immediately call Matt and beg him to come home arguing that we've apparently trapped some living animal in our garbage. Believing this animal to be some sort of rodent, I refuse to go anywhere near it. At this point, I'm mildly saddened at the thought of a poor animal suffocating in a plastic bag full of decaying weeds, but believing it to be a mouse, I get over it. Matt laughs at me and goes back to work.

Several hours later, as the cleaning ladies are replacing the supplies in the garage and I'm writing their check, we all hear the noise -- louder this time. Squeakier. Aidee confirms that it's probably a mouse, except she says "baby" mouse. So now I feel guilty. I beg her to look in the bag for me, and then she sees it. Sitting on top. The nest. "Ahhh, Ms. Mary! It's full of baby birds!"

Holy crap!

"And they're starving!" So Aidee, her mother-in-law Elena, and I rush out the baby birds, find the exact spot in my ferns that they were situated in, and replace the entire nest. Then I start to panic. I rush into the house and call the first number I can think of -- Winghaven, a bird sanctuary and garden set up a million years ago by some rich, child-less woman who lived in the fancy part of uptown Charlotte and who loved birds. While I'm doing this, Aidee is literally digging up our lawn (i.e. weeds) to find something to feed the birds. I rush outside through the garage, and then I hear more squeaking -- we forgot one! Another baby bird just lying on top of this clipping pile squeaking its little heart out! So Elena comes to rescue that one while Aidee is feeding the others little bug/worm things she find in the soil and while the Winghaven lady is telling me that their mother may very well return, we need to leave them be for a while, etc.

Noah is enthralled for all of 30 seconds (his baby bird excitement is then quickly replaced by his (false) belief that he has managed to tie the drawstring of his pants). I peek in the nest and see these 5 precious little things, all of them stretching their delicate necks out and desperately opening their beaks in search of food. My heart is literally breaking and I'm near tears. (Who knew I could care this much about none-human living things?)

I then call Matt again to tell him that we are two of the dumbest, cruelest people ever. And that's when we see Mommy returning. She clearly had been searching for her babies. For the last hour now, she's been keeping tabs on them and bringing them food. But the most amazing thing is that she seems to have recruited help. There are definitely at least 2-3 birds coming to these babies. As pathetic as this sounds, please think of these poor babies and send positive energy their way so they live. And then pray that Matt and I gain a shred of common sense and learn to either a) leave a birdnest exactly where we find it; or b) open our eyes enough to notice 5 baby birds sitting right under our noses. It's truly amazing Noah and Luke are still alive.

UPDATE: We lost one. Either fell out of the nest or was pushed out because it had already died. This is so upsetting.