Empty Nest Syndrome

If I would have written this post a month ago, a week ago, or even 24 hours ago, the title would have been "Uninvited" or "If you don't pay rent here you can't live here."  It's funny how things can change in just 24 hours, isn't it?

About a month ago I went out of town for a weekend.  (I can't remember for certain if it was Girls Weekend in Wisconsin or if it was Former New Yorker Reunion Weekend in Iowa, but it was one or the other.)  When I came home I found that my balcony had been trashed.  (And I do mean trashed.)  The entire balcony was covered in grass, weeds, and dirt.  The grass was wrapped around the base of my grill and piled under my table and chairs, and I could barely step onto the balcony without wading through it all.  I have some very inconsiderate neighbors upstairs (I'm forever picking their dirty cigarette butts off my balcony, and they once dumped an entire bucket of what I can only imagine was mop water THROUGH their balcony onto mine.), so my first thought was that they must have been doing a little inconsiderate balcony gardening while I was gone.  Then I looked up and realized that I was too quick to blame.  The culprit was not my upstairs neighbor, but my new roommate in the form of a mama robin.  There is one single beam that runs length-wise above my balcony (supporting the balcony above mine), and apparently this robin took advantage of my absence and quickly assembled a nest on the beam and laid her eggs in it.

So, for the last month I've had a pair of robins squatting on my balcony.  They squawked all day and all night, they pooped on my (normally immaculate) balcony, and they dive-bombed me if I tried to step outside.  (Apparently they forget who pays the bills around here!)  They've been making me crazy, but unfortunately I have a heart and couldn't even consider moving the nest since there were eggs in it and I didn't want a) to harm the eggs, or b) the mama to abandon them.  So for a month now I've been impatiently waiting for these eggs to hatch and the birds to fly away so I can reclaim my balcony.

Early this week the eggs finally hatched.  I thought I would find blue egg shells on the balcony when the time came, but instead I looked up one day and saw several little heads in the nest.  Even my frozen heart had to admit it was sort of cute.  I expected the little guys to chirp their heads off, but they were actually pretty quiet--unlike the small child that lives above me!  Because the nest was so high up I wasn't able to tell for sure how many babies there were, but there were at least four, and possibly five.  (It looked pretty crowded up there!) All week long I watched the parents make countless trips to and from the nest with food.  As the week went on, the poop (and worm guts) piled up on my balcony, the baby birds got fatter, and it grew more and more crowded up there.

Getting crowded...

Last night I was sitting on the sofa (which faces outside) when all of a sudden one of the babies was flapping his wings like crazy and hanging from my screen door.  It took me a second to figure out why a bird was clinging to my screen, but as soon as I realized that the babies were learning to fly (and I was going to get my balcony back!) I rushed over to watch.  The little bird hopped around on the balcony for a few minutes, ducked under the railing, stood on the edge of the balcony (looking very much like a bungee-jumper trying to find his courage), then took the big leap and fluttered his way down and landed on top of a car parked in front of the building.  He stood there for a few minutes looking bewildered and relieved, then flew off.

About an hour later I found the only other remaining baby bird staring in the screen door at me.  I sat down in front of him and watched while he hopped around and tried to figure out how his wings worked.  He kept trying to fly into the screen, into the wall, into my grill...everywhere but towards the edge of the balcony.  He hopped up onto my chair, and when I asked him not to poop on my chair he hopped up onto my table and pooped on it instead.  After half an hour or so he hopped over to the edge of the balcony, but he just wasn't ready to go.  I went out onto the balcony with him and he didn't seem to mind at all, so I spent the next hour coaxing him to spread his wings and fly away.  His mama, meanwhile, was trying to convince him as well.  I've never seen a baby bird learn to fly before, and it was really neat to watch.  The mama kept flying up to him (with a worm in her beak), doing aerial tricks, landing here and there, trying to entice him to fly to her.  It was sort of like watching a mom try to coax her child with floaties on each arm and around the waist to jump into her arms in a pool.  Eventually the mama gave up and left, and I spent an hour or so on the balcony before my little friend finally took the leap, but  he finally did it and he made it safely to the ground.  I watched him hop around on the ground with his mama (who returned once he got up the courage to go for it) until it got too dark to see him any more.  (And I caught  my neighbors on the first floor watching him too.)

My little friend, Hoppy.  The last one to fly away.

Hoppy (left) trying to get up the courage to take the big leap.  Mama (right) trying to entice him with a worm.

Now I have a balcony covered with grass and worm guts and bird poop, and I'm going to have to climb up to get the nest down (since the family will not return to it), but despite all of that, somehow I kind of miss those little guys.  Somehow in the last 24 hours they sort of endeared themselves to me.  Perhaps it was just so I wouldn't resent them while I'm cleaning off and reclaiming my balcony?