My Post for Monday 9-15-08
We tried to give Mother Nature a helping hand.

During the BIG wind storm (remnants of Hurricane Ike) we found four little baby birds on the grass under our street tree that we were staking (to save it from an untimely demise). I ran to the house and got an old shoe box and lined it with tissues, put on some rubber gloves and scooped the little birdies into the box. We kept them in the quiet of the laundry room. My plan was to return them to their nest or a replacement nest when the storm passed.
I talked to my sister about 2 hours after rescuing the birds. She suggested feeding them cornmeal mixed with warm water. They gobbled it up from a serenge (leftover from dog medicine). I fed them again before I went to bed. Then I checked on them around 3 a.m. they were all huddled together sleeping.
In the morning the storm had passed and we were still without electric. I fed the baby birds once more. I tried to locate the nest but had no luck. I got the empty nest that the Cardinal's had made in one of the shrubs on the side of our house. I placed the babies in it and climbed a ladder and placed the nest in the tree.

Paige determined from her "Backyard Bird" book that the babies belonged to a pair of Gold Finches that we had seen in our yard the past few weeks. We had seen them with nesting materials, right at our back window. Paige read that they nest in late summer when thistle and sunflower seeds are abundant. They also like yards with zinnia's, cosmos and sunflowers, we have all of them in our yard.
We watched for the parents to return all day Monday, with the electric out and no school we had nothing better to do. We checked on the babies at lunch time and they were poking their heads up, beaks wide open wanting their food. I took them down and gave them a quick cornmeal-water meal then returned them to their tree. I fed them once more before it got dark.
I decided it was their last meal from us, I was afraid that I was just keeping them alive and I knew they would not thrive on cornmeal mush.
I told Paige "we did all we could and now it was up to Mother Nature".
I looked up at the nest when I got home from work Tuesday afternoon. I was hoping that the momma bird had returned but all I saw was bees buzzing around the nest so I'm pretty sure they babies did not make it. I did not have the heart to get the ladder out and check for sure. I think this has been harder on me than my kids. I keep wondering if that momma is still out their searching for her babies, did she get blown in the storm and she can't find her way back. It just makes me sad, but we did our best. If we had not scooped them up they would have died in the grass or worse my dogs would have found them.
P.S. Sorry this story does not have a happy ending...sometimes life is like that, I guess.