Circling (a story from the top of my mountain)

 When we first got to the cabin it was a mess! Lots of work to do in the yard and the house. After all, it’d been a year since our last visit! So day one saw the Rons outside trimming and mowing and edging while I was inside cleaning the windows, taking the screens down for a good hosing . . . all that spring cleaning type stuff. At the end of the day Ron pulled me outside to a low rhododendron just off the front porch where his trimming had revealed a nest of three spotted eggs. 

During our stay we were privy to the whole process. We watched as the pair of Dark Eyed Junkos meticulously tended the nest. 

Regardless the fact that Ron’s trimming had left the nest exposed and vulnerable, regardless the handful of heavy rain showers we had, the birds were there, loyal to their task.  

We started making it easier by providing a ready supply of dried meal worms which we’d dump in a pile in the posts of the wooden handrail. One morning I went outside and found the pair hopping from post to post, clicking their tongues at me — how dare we let the pile get empty! Long about week two things changed and we were rewarded by the tiny mouths of two hatchlings, all gangly legs, bulging eyes and peach fuzz poking out of their wee tiny heads. 

The third egg hatched that same day and the parents’ work increased. They became a tag team—feeding, sitting, foraging. It was surprising how fast the babies grew! Only a few days and  their eyes had opened and they’d begun sprouting pin feathers.

One morning I peaked in and found one missing. I figured it had been that last one to hatch, the weakest of the three. I figured it had just not made it and the parents had somehow finagled its body out of the next. But on the day before we were to leave we learned what really happened. The parents were throwing a wall eyed fit, flitting from branch to branch and making their peculiar little clicking chirp. When Ron parted the branches he saw a snake sliding back down the brush and Ronnie saw the telltale bulge in its stomach.  

Now I don’t hate snakes like some do. I actually think they are pretty cool. In fact, I used to have a few of them back in my “weird attraction to strange pets” stage which included a tarantula, an iguana and several hermit crabs. And I know all about nature and how some things must die for others to live. But I had become invested in the lives of those little hatchlings and seeing them picked off like that was more than a little heart wrenching.

There was one gangly little one left when we packed up and drove away. We had renters coming in the next day and Ron urged me to give them a call, to ask if they’d peek into the nest and see if the snake had been back. 

But I didn’t call. I didn’t really want to know. I’d rather just imagine that the snake had had its fill and that that last little hatchling survived. And that’s exactly how I’m leaving this story.