Friend of Fowl

This is not a moorhen, just some birds.

We live in an apartment complex that has several large ponds. These ponds attract all kinds of animal life. We've seen huge frogs as big as your fist and tiny frogs about the size of my fingernail (which is small since I usually chew them short.) There are turtles who come out to sun on the side of the pond. There are ducks, herons, ibises, moorhens and all sorts of bird life.

I mentioned in one of my posts earlier this summer about Mr. Moorhen. He had moved into the pond beside our house and called and called until one day a Miss Moorhen moved into the pond and became Mrs. Moorhen. We were so happy for Mr. Moorhen. He didn't do his annoying cry/call anymore as he had found his partner.

Then Mrs. Moorhen made a nest on the unused fountain equipment in the middle of the pond. Matt and I were so excited for the cute little birds. Mrs. Moorhen sat on that nest and never moved for the entire summer. I'd say at least 2 months. She was out there in the rain, in the heat, in the wind - it didn't matter, you could always see her little head snuggled in with the branches she'd used to create her home. Mr. Moorhen stuck close by during this time. He'd bring her food and scare away the animals that were close.

She sat on that nest for a long time. Long enough that Matt and I were skeptical as to whether there actually were any eggs there at all. I was sad, I just knew her eggs hadn't worked and she's sat and sat and sooner or later she'd figure out nothing was coming out. That dumb bird was going to sit out there all summer.

Then one day we had just gotten back from a weekend trip and lo and behold, there were little black, fuzzy, TINY baby birds cheeping and swimming around in our pond. I think I cried. I was so happy for that little Momma bird. Her patience and nest-sitting had paid off. She had SEVEN baby birds. SEVEN! I should have taken a photo of them. They were so tiny and fuzzy. Imagine 2 of those puffballs used for crafting and put a little neck connecting them with a beak on one and you'd have a pretty accurate representation. They were adorable.

So over the past month or so, I've been looking for these babies every day. I check on them when I walk the dogs, when we get the mail, do the laundry or walk to the car. Every time I count them. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7. It's almost like an obsessive compulsive thing (which is funny as I'm not really OCD in anyway.)

The drain. You can see a glimpse of the baby gate.

The pond right outside our apartment has a drain that collects any overflow and sends it out down the pipes. This keeps the pond from flooding the apartments around it when we get a lot of rain really fast or hurricane type rains where it just pours for days. This ditch has top, but the sides are just open. One day last week while walking the dogs, I heard some cheeping coming from that ditch. I knew there were some baby birds down there. I quickly scanned the pond and counted. 1-2-3-4-5......only 5 babies were in the pond. There were two babies in the drain!

I quickly took the dogs inside, put on my galoshes and ran back to the drain. Momma Moorhen was standing on the edge of the drain looking down. She swam away when I got close, but it just confirmed my worst fears. When I peeked in the drain I saw two little heads, but they quickly ducked into the pipe so I couldn't see them, but I could hear them.

By this time, Matt had gotten home. He was standing at the edge of the pond in his work clothes calling suggestions. We decided to lower a basket full of bread attached to a dog leash into the drain. We'd entice the baby birds into the basket with the bread and then we'd pull them out. Looking back, this probably wasn't the best idea. These moorhens are the most cautious birds I have ever seen. They don't come near people and when people come near them they quickly find somewhere else to be. The babies chirp like crazy when they're separated from their parents. There's a lot of vegetation in our pond which can hide the birds from each other. I've seen one of the babies just chirping and cheeping away looking for his momma and the she is right beside them, they just can't see her from the leaves.

So these skittish birds would have nothing to do with my bread basket. I whistled and they'd answer me, but the wouldn't come to my basket. I've never been a patient fisherman so sitting there and waiting and praying those babies would climb in was so hard. (I don't' know why I thought the birds would just jump in the basket. I mean, like the birds were suddenly going to trust me and the strange thing that just dropped in. They were scared enough already).

After about 45 minutes of unsuccessful fishing, Matt and I started to weigh our other options to get the birds out. I was realizing that as long as they could sense people outside, they would never come out. We thought about just climbing down in the ditch to grab them, but I seriously doubted the would come running to us in gratitude. They wouldn't even eat the bread pieces I threw to them. Plus the drain is about 6 feet deep and getting out would have been really difficult.

We decided to use our baby gates to make a ladder for the birds. Wil had recently chewed holes in in the plastic of the baby gates so we couldn't use them anymore to contain the dogs. He had actually chewed the largest hole that day so it's like God knew we'd need them. I lowered the gates in the ditch, got them set on angles and we secured them with 2 dog leashes. Moorhens are water birds, but they don't' have webbed feet so we figured they'd be able to climb out. It was getting dark so we left them, prayed they'd figure it out and went to make dinner.

A baby moorhen...see his long claws on the white pole?

I worried ALL NIGHT about those baby birds. I didn't want them to die down there. We went to check on them later that night and didn't hear any noises coming from the drain. I even whistled to try to wake them up. It was silent. Matt and I prayed they'd figure out how to climb out and went to bed. I didn't sleep well.

The next morning I was so scared to take the dogs out for a walk. Scared of what'd I'd hear or wouldn't hear. I got outside and started counting...1-2-3-4-5.....6...so at least one of the little guys had made it out! I was so thankful. I thanked God for helping the babies and figured that the 7th must have gone on to bird heaven. God had other plans for him. I redid my count just to be sure. 1-2-3-4-5-6...and 7! There they were! ALL SEVEN BABIES! I ran in to tell Matt! We had helped those little birds! I honestly couldn't believe it. I was so grateful. We're leaving our baby gate “escape unit” in the ditch for a while. We don't want to hear anymore little cries coming from the drain.

If you've read this entire story, you probably think I'm weird for going to all this trouble for some birds. But I've been looking after these little birds for a long time and my heart broke when I heard their scared little cries coming out of the ditch. It was never a question of IF I could save them, it was only HOW. And I can't tell you how grateful and happy it makes me to come out everyday and do my count. From 1 to 7.