No longer a grandma Well, my. Over the weekend I went over to the birdcage for no reason and saw little things squirming in the bottom of the cage. I thought, what the hell, and then I realized that they were baby finches that had crawled out of the nest and plummeted 18 inches to the crap covered newspaper, probably smacking into a manzanita perch and the cage grill bottom on the way. Oh, such cute squirmy things. Little adorable sacks of protoplasm with weird shit sticking out of their heads. Who knew I�d feel so maternal towards So anyhoo, I screeched for the Hubby and we took the cage into the bathroom, where we scooped up the babies into a soup spoon and ladled them back into the nest. Poor little things, with their distended bellies and all. A little while later, I peeked back into the cage to see the babies gamely trying to squirm their way out of the nest AGAIN while one the girls was trying to poke them back into the nest. I took this as a good sign that perhaps one of the girls was ATTEMPTING to be maternal and I replaced all the food in the cage and added soft fruit and other easy digestables that would be easy to shove down the babies� gullets. The next day, though, I found the babies again on the bottom of the cage AGAIN, those dopey creatures. We gamely scooped them back into the nest, this time putting the nest in a shallow tray on the cage bottom so at least the little buggers wouldn�t fall so far. I got concerned that the hatchlings wouldn�t have any more of their egg sack (their distended bellies) and they would starve if the mamas didn�t start feeding them. Unfortunately, this is what happened. The next day I peeked into the nest to find a passel of fresh eggs and three dead babies. I feel sad that my Flutternutters ditched their parental responsibilities yet felt the need to make more eggs. Yes, they�re birds, and they have brains the size of a lentil. Yet I am so reminded of another species with a supposedly superior brain. Hmm. I wonder who THAT could be?
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