Baby Bird Drama

I'm sure you have heard of Baby-Mama Drama...but have you ever heard of Baby Bird Drama?
Well welcome to my new soap opera!

We recently watched a mama and daddy bird build their quaint little nest on our front porch.  It is right outside our living room window so we have had a front row seat for the whole thing.  It's been a great teaching tool for the kids because we have been able to talk about the science behind birds building a nest and how COOL God is to give a bird such smart intuitions on building. 
After the nest was built we watched the sweet little mama sit on her eggs for almost two weeks.  And then one day it happened...little bitty birds were there!  The kids were THRILLED!  The babies are about a week old now and we have seen them double in size.
Well yesterday was when the drama began to unfold...

So let's give them all names:
We will call mama bird Jane and we will call "the other woman" Sally.

So mama Jane has been a resident of the Holland front porch for about 3 weeks.  From a distant tree, hoochie Sally saw how nice and cozy Jane's home was and decided she wanted to build her nest on the other side of the porch.  Tim and I were not too thrilled about this one though because it was right outside our bedroom window.  Plus she had nest stealer written all over her. 
After a few days Sally gave up on her nest.  We are not sure why but she just stopped building it.  We did notice, however, that she kept hanging around the porch watching Jane's little family. 
Yesterday I was watching the baby birds when I noticed one of them was lying lifeless on the ground.  I was incredibly distraught!  My hormones kicked up a notch at this point and I tried to see if the baby was moving at all.  I was completely willing to give the baby bird CPR (call me crazy but it's the truth!)  With my teary eyes I looked up to see a very guilty looking Sally watching me.  I will not call her a murderer...but she looked pretty guilty.  Could she be trying to steal Jane's nest?  Did she realize she was not going to lay eggs and postpartum depression set in and made her crazy and she was trying to rid the world of baby birds?  Either way she was definitely a home wrecker of some sort. 

After a fun evening out we came home and saw that mama Jane was not in her nest.  This troubled me because every evening she would curl up with her babies around 8:00 and stay there with them for the entire night.  I stayed up until 11:45 and still there was no mama bird!!!  However, Sally was always lurking around the porch.  I even went outside to water my hanging baskets and she attacked me!!  Tim and I watched her all evening and at one point she flew up to the nest, peaked in, and then made herself puff up to about 3 times her size!!  She flew off after that and we didn't see her again. 

At this point I can't figure out what to do.  Tim and I both felt that mama Jane might have abandoned her nest because that home wrecker wouldn't leave them alone.  Or maybe Jane was so distraught over losing one of her babies that she left the rest of them.  Either way, in my mind I went to bed thinking that today I was going to take over the job of mama bird.  I planned out what I would feed them, where I would keep them, and watching them grow up into fine young big birds! 
Since this was the last thing on my mind I proceeded to dream about those sweet little birds all night.  My dreams were much more dramatic including an all out war on home wrecker Sally and Tim fighting a snake that was trying to eat our young.  It was very real, and not restful at all.  I woke up exhausted!

The first thing I did when I woke up was look out the window.  Still, mama Jane was nowhere to be found.  But guess who was lurking in the shadows?  SALLY! 
After about 10 minutes I saw a joyous sight...MAMA JANE HAD RETURNED!  And she had a mouthful of breakfast.  I almost screamed with joy!  I was so happy to see those babies eating.  I was also incredibly relieved that I was not going to be taking on the role of mama bird. 

So I will continue to watch my exciting bird soap opera and keep you updated.  It really is a lot more exciting than tv.  =)