Cruelty of nature

This summer I planted Impatien flowers around our front porch. I haven't planted flowers since we lived in Owensville all those years ago, so I was excited to finally plant some around this house.





I tended to these flowers every day, cleaning out the dead parts and giving them water. One day I noticed that the box closest to the steps was not thriving. Parts of the stems were turning yellow. I couldn't figure it out until I took a good, close look at the flowers. That's when I found this:



We threw the first one away, but overnight a new one was in it's place and in it was and egg. It was like she knew if she deposited a baby bird in the nest, I would leave it alone. She was right. Eventually, there were two eggs.


One day, Emily came into the house (she had a habit of checking the eggs every day) and asked what the goopy thing was that was in the nest. Goopy thing??? Sure enough, that goopy thing was a brand spankin' new baby bird.



Not long after, there were two goopy things in the nest. We were excited. For weeks, I sacrificed my wonderful flowers so this bird could have a safe haven to hatch her babies. We couldn't wait for those goopy things to grow feathers and eventually fly away.

Several days go by and Emily (again) came in and told me the baby birds had flown away. I had to explain to her that that wasn't possible because the babies didn't have feathers yet; they couldn't even open their eyes. "Then why are there feathers all over the flowers?" We went to the nest and, alas, there were lots of feathers and no babies and no mama bird (she was never far away). We assume a cat or a hawk got ahold of them.

But, how sad is that? We did everything we could to keep those birds safe, and in the long run, these birds fell victim to the food chain. Those little lives were taken while we slept and life continued like it was no big deal. They didn't even have a chance.

Nature is beautiful to look at and enjoy, but boy can it be cruel.