Just dropped in

Last night, we discovered the reason for the large concentration of bird poo in one particular area on the deck:

Though it's not entirely this guy's fault. There's a sibling and at least one parental unit who I'm sure contributed to the mess.

This little poo machine fell out of his nest onto the deck. Or, more probably, was pushed. Feathers in? Check. Wings are flapping? Check. Get the heck out of the nest and fly away, little guy. And please, go crap right on the deck (which is exactly what he did right before I took this picture; you just can't see the white spot of goo until his wee little tail from this angle). 

He was followed shortly by a sibling who landed smack on the table and left this little gift, too:

I don't like shell in my egg. Actually, I don't like yolk either.

I was a little concerned for their safety as they staggered and waddled around, flapping their itty bitty little wings. I didn't particularly want to get involved in any sort of rescue, mostly because I figured I would muff the whole thing and a potentially survivable situation would turn into avian murder, so I was really hoping they would be okay. On their own. Quickly. 

And apparently they were. They continued to take relatively small tumbles down from the deck onto the patio and then the ground and before long, were hopping through the grass behind a grown-up bird (I'm assuming the one that had just pushed them out of the nest) and before long, they were gone. I'm pretty sure this is what's referred to as fledging and it was pretty darned cool to see it up close. I guess some birds fledge before they are ready to fly (where the heck do they go??) but these little guys seemed quite capable of at least short bursts of flight as they tried desperately to get away from me. 

More of a hop here. Note the little pile of poo in the bottom right corner. 

I used to really dislike birds. I think they're pretty awesome now. And in this case, I'm happy about a few things: 1) they survived; 2) we got to watch the major life change that is leaving the nest; and 3) they will stop carpet bombing my deck from their nest. Awesome.