The Baby Bird Drama!

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A couple of months ago I posted a discussion about the native Wattle Bird nesting in our carport. She had not had success with her first two attempts at raising chicks, but a lot has happened since. With her third laying, there were four eggs, the forth being layed a a littke later than the others. They all hatched. We did not get too close, as the mother Wattle bird gets scared, & once the babies are a little older they easily fall out of the nest. After one week or so, we cfould see little beaks & heads appearing above the nest. Mother was flying in & out with food & the babies made squeaking sounds. Soon after, the four babies were sitting up on top of the nest. They were very cute. They became more confident & stepped out of the nest. I knew then it wouldn't be long before they learned to fly. The problem was, the dogs. We put both dogs around the other side of the house where there is a narrow closed off space. It took three of the fluffy baby birds less than one day to learn to fly, & they wwere up in the fruit trees. Not so the fourth. He got out of his nest, & half flew to the ground. Then he quickly walked out of the carport, dopwn the lawn & kind of flew to a fruit tree. Every houy or so I would go out & check the fruit tree. He appeared not to be able to fly at all well. So the dogs stayed out the side of the house all day & all night. By the following day we couldn't locate the non flying baby, so we had to assume that it had learnt to fly. Two weeks later the mother bird was back & had layed four more eggs!! There is more to this story, which I will relate soon.