Flight

At least two of the fledglings have flown today. Probably the two in the pictures with the least down left were the adventurers. They will be quite awkward for a few days and miscalculate distances and heights and suddenly find themselves overtaken by fear. For the past two years, one of the fledglings has fallen, been taken by watchful neighbors to PAWS for rehab and been brought back, when well and tagged, to be released back to the neighborhood and family. The next few days will be critical in that regard. As for today, though, all is well. When I left the site, there were plaintive calls coming from the back of the nest tree from one of the adventurers probably tired, hungry, fearful, and fumbling. Spike was in a nearby tree watching as there is not much she can do unless they're threatened.
Flight is such an interesting thing to us on the ground. It is absolutely nature and nurture. For several weeks those wee birds get to see demonstrations of technique from their own masters, their parents. They witness countless takeoffs and landings, swoops, banks, soars. Somewhere in their brains this information is collected, stored, and used when their shoulders start feeling "the itch" and those pieces of fluff start falling off to reveal long and beautiful and aerodynamic feathers. They bob and flex and jump in the nest to strengthen their leg muscles and flap and stretch their wings time after time. It all leads to this day, flight day. All the preparation helps but it is that leap, that desire to leap, that need to leap which stops many of us on the ground. This is where I think "nature" really takes charge. It is that irrevocable need to leap that birds have that we do not. And, of course, once the leap is taken and nature's call is answered, then all that flexing and flapping and nurturing come into play and flight ensues. We on the ground have devised our own birds but, alas, we can never fully trust ourselves to nothing but our wings and the elements. Thus, that leap is for those two birds today and their siblings tomorrow or the next day and never for us groundlings.