Country Life

 In the first week it seemed like our babies doubled in size each day, but by the second week they seemed to double their feathers each day.

There are definitely three of them now.

More feathers and those big orange beaks.

Now their beady eyes are open, and although I saw one standing on the edge of the nest, they can now see me coming with my camera and quickly huddle down into the nest.

Wit wit wit.....wit wit wit... wit wit wit....

Last Wednesday I was out gardening at the back of the gazebo when I heard what I always associate with the distress call of a bird.

Wit wit wit...wit wit, wit. Then the neighbours chooks started performing so I thought I'd better go and take a look. And low and behold there was a large Alsatian dog in the garden. It looked a bit bewildered, and I wondered if it had fallen off the back of a ute.

Duncan chased it up the drive with instructions to go home, but a little while later it reappeared and sat down on the lawn and watched, dolefully, as I prepared dinner, we ate dinner, and when Duncan did the dishes. By now it was too late to call anybody, so we left it to sleep on the lawn.

In the morning we awoke to what to all intents and purposes was a dead dog sprawled on the lawn. "That's a big hole to dig" said Duncan as he dialled the dog rangers phone number. A wee while later the dog lifted his head and struggled to his feet. The Dog ranger arrived soon after  - the dog was apparently an ex-police dog 19years old and living out his days on a rural property just across the road next to the school. I can now see that the bewildered look was poor eyesight, possibly poor hearing, but seemed to have a good sense of smell.

But then we discovered - the nest was empty!!! It had not been disturbed in any way, there were no baby birds on the ground, no mother blackbird gathering worms. We could easily see that a big dog could trot up the steps, put its paws on the handrail and delicately help itself to a hot dinner.

Or was it co-incidence???

The nest stands empty now. The sparrows are taking an interest.

Its Twins!! - or possibly triplets.

 On Thursday morning we noticed that Mother blackbird wasn't there, and on peaking in there were these quivering bags of skin.

We think there are two of them lying side by side. They are so vulnerable, but I am still puzzling how all of this fitted into the pale blue speckled shells. The only recognisable thing is a huge orange beak which surely stretched the length of the shell..

Now it is Sunday and the naked little bodies seem to be getting some dark fluff.

Its hard to tell how many are in here now, or whether the wings are spread out a bit. Some parts may just be the yolk sack. There appear to be two dark eye structures too.