Thursday, April 18, 2013

Parking Lot Mama


This little lady had taken up residence in an open area between the parking spaces in Halibut's school parking lot.  He found her on the day we were volunteering with the scouts to clean up the school grounds.  She, of course, was angry at being disturbed by a bunch of little boys and was squawking mightily at them - even though she was about a 1000th of their size!  She was so fierce!  And he was mesmerized!

For weeks afterward, we would look for her every morning on the drive to school through the maze-like parking lot.  Each morning he would see her, nearly camoflauged among the mulch/bark,  and wonder that she was still there faithfully guarding her eggs amidst all the noisy traffic of cars and kids.

But today, we searched for her and she was gone.  I actually parked the car and walked over to see if the nest was still there.  No nest.  No eggs. No babies.  No mama bird.

I hope that some good Samaritan was able to move the nest someplace safer than the middle of a parking lot, and that she and the eggs are still doing well.  But Halibut and I will definitely miss seeing her on our long weaves through the parking lot to get to the school door.

I hope he will remember how she protected her little eggs even against threats so much bigger than she was.  I'm printing this picture for Halibut's room so he can to remember our brave and faithful Parking Lot Mama Bird (he took some other photos himself but they were a little blurry, but as far as I'm concerned, HE took this).