what kind of bird is it?

I have this bird sitting on eggs in my garage. I know nothing about birds. Can anyone tell me what kind of eggs these are? The "mama" is brown in color and about 2-3 inches long.

They look delicious!

Those are the eggs of a European swallow. Check around for coconut shells, they are a dead give away.

Dev,

You may be right. I found what looks like coconut shell pieces in the box of motor oil next to the nest. And I discovered the bird doesn't fly away in fear if I "coo" at it in French or Portugese.

Soldier #1: What? A swallow carrying a coconut?
Arthur: It could grip it by the husk!
Soldier #1: It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a one pound coconut.
Arthur: Well, it doesn't matter. Will you go and tell your master that Arthur from the Court of Camelot is here?
Soldier #1: Listen. In order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings forty-three times every second, right?
Arthur: Please!
Soldier #1: Am I right?
Arthur: I'm not interested!
Soldier #2: It could be carried by an African swallow!
Soldier #1: Oh, yeah, an African swallow maybe, but not a European swallow. That's my point.
Soldier #2: Oh, yeah, I agree with that.
Arthur: Will you ask your master if he wants to join my court at Camelot?!
Soldier #1: But then of course a-- African swallows are non-migratory.
Soldier #2: Oh, yeah...
Soldier #1: So, they couldn't bring a coconut back anyway...
[clop clop clop]
Soldier #2: Wait a minute! Supposing two swallows carried it together?
Soldier #1: No, they'd have to have it on a line.
Soldier #2: Well, simple! They'd just use a strand of creeper!
Soldier #1: What, held under the dorsal guiding feathers?
Soldier #2: Well, why not?

Without looking at the actual bird, it's hard for me to decipher the eggs. Rough guess says it's a sparrow or house finch, as the nest is about right for either of them, but without scale, the size is hard to guess at.
Can you get a pic of the birdie? I'd be able to adentify it in a nanosecond.

The rest of you have entirely too much brain space devoted to Python referencing.

Love Always,
Lleah

And I thought I was a Monty Python fan

Lleah,

I have the day off tomorrow so will try to get a picture of mama bird, if I can figure out how to get close enough without scaring her off.

My biggest problem now is figuring out how I'm gonna keep my cats out of the garage when the babies are learning to fly. arghhhh.

This is the scetch that came to mind for me:

Waiter: (bowing to camera) I hope you're enjoying the show.

(On pans the camera to the end of the field where we pick up a man in a long mac crawling on all fours through the undergrowth. We follow him as he occasionally dodges behind a bush or a tree. He is stealthily tracking something. After a few moments he comes up behind a bird watcher (in deerstalker and tweeds) who lies at the top of a small rise, with his binoculars trained. With infinite caution the man in the long mac slides up behind the bird watcher, then he stretches out a hand and opens the flap of the bird watcher's knapsack. He pulls out a small white paper bag. Holding his breath, he feels inside the bag and produces a small pie, then a tomato and finally two hard-boiled eggs. He pockets the hard-boiled eggs, puts the rest back and creeps away.)

Voice Over: Herbert Mental collects bird watchers' eggs. At his home in Surrey he has a collection of over four hundred of them.

(Cut to Mantle in a study lined with shelves full of hard-boiled eggs. They all have little labels on the front of them. He goes up and selects one from a long line of identical hard-boiled eggs.)

Herbert: 'Ere now. This is a very interesting one. This is from a Mr P. F. Bradshaw. He is usually found in Surrey hedgerows, but I found this one in the gents at St Pancras, uneaten.

birdies!

You know, I do the wildife rehab thing on weekends, and we just got our first baby bird of the season, a Stellar's Jay. The thing is just adorable. Also adorable are the eight zillion baby squirrels and about fourty five billion baby opossum.
And two seals and two bald eagle. And some other stuff.

Anyhow ...
Getting back to the point of your story, good luck getting a photo, as I'm curious. And secondly, the birdies only fledge for a couple days, so if you can keep an eye out, they'll be gone from the garage in a pretty short amount of time.


Someone asked me once if we released possums right back onto the highway to save time.

lol

XOL

YES! Once I read "European Swallow" I knew what had to be done!

http://www.style.org/unladenswallow/

Objective research!

Lleah,

You weekend work sounds wondrous. Every time I get near the nest to take a photo, Mama flies away. But I'll keep trying intermittently....I don't want to upset her too much.

My cats killed a bird last night (and left it next to my bed as a present. ewwwwww) and I was afraid it was the mama until i ran out and checked. She's still there.

We'll have to meet in-world sometime. LOL.

No way, that wasn't a present. That was a demand--"Skin this, cook it, and serve it to me on a silver platter NOW!"

Dog philosophy: You give me shelter and food, you must be a god.

Cat philosophy: You give me shelter and food, I must be a god.

Which would you rather live with?

Does birdie have speckles? any stripes on head? Any other colors? How long is tail?

I feel inclined to squash a myth, btw, since I'm thinking about it. Maybe y'all already know this:
The story about adult birds not taking babies back once humans have touched them is a myth perpetuated to keep children from poking at nests.
So if you see a baby bird on the ground (as is common when they're learning to fly), just pop it back into the nest if you can reach it. If the bird's way too wee to be out of its nest, you can put a margerine container full of toilet paper up in a tree near the nest, and mom will find it and feed it (the bird .. not the margerine container).

I say this because oodles of well-meaning folks bring baby birds into the shelter this time of year, and we have to tell them to go and put them back. Heh.

If any of you have a thing for wildlife, you should really consider volunteering at a rehab center. A release is an incredibly rewarding experience, and eveyrone should have the chance to do it at least once.

Okay then. That's all.
Don't ever change.

XOL

Lleah,

I rarely see mama bird anymore....she's too busy flying around to get food for what appears to be four or so baby birds. I'm pretty sure they're swallows from pictures I've found on the net.

They were hairless little things when they hatched but have quickly grown feathers, though I don't think their eyes are open yet.

Life will be easier for mama once the babies' beaks are strong enough to breeak seeds, I guess. For now, she seems to be bringing them live insects and worms.

I can spy on her if I'm patient enough to sit in my car and wait for her arrival, since the nest is in my garage. When I'm in my car she doesn't know I'm there so she'll come and go as normal.

Uhm, Maggie? Where exactly is mama bird gonna get all the seeds it would take to feed those baby birds?

OH, FOR CUTE!!!!


Easy way to tell if they're swallos is just by looking at their little pointy shape. They like like teensy little falcons sometimes, except flatter and more football-shaped. Heh.
Histericale little things.

You are very lucky!



LL

Dev...


Well, gettiing the seeds will be easy. The reason she built her nest on my garage shelf is that it's conveniently located next to a very large bag of bird seed. LOL. She has to travel all of about six inches to get it.

Clever little birdie.

As an expert in corrugated sciences, I can say with great confidence that the picture of the eggs are not in fact swallow eggs, (European, African or otherwise). They are in fact ostrich eggs. The hatchlings will most likely grow to be 3-5 meters tall in the next two weeks and will speak Botswanae. You should be carefull as the ostrishes main diet is cats and they have poisonous quills they shoot from their eyes. Good luck!

Forestrock, you know you are one of my favorite SL people, but I must beg to differ with you here.

Believe it or not, the ostriches are next door to my house. Two of 'em. And they don't speak Botswanae at all. They speak French.

And just as an aside...the nieghbor's german shephard has decided her "mission" in life is to shephard these ostriches. They walk up and down one side of a fence all day; she walks up and down the other side. They don't seem to appreciate her efforts and I've seem 'em kick her good and hard a time or two.

You think one of the ostriches next door mated with a Botswanae swallow, perhaps....?

Forestrock,

Please check your facts before posting to USENET.

Ostriches do not shoot poison from their eyes. They do, however, keep an entire battallion of M1A1 tanks under their plumage.

You're actually thinking of the common Berwick's wren, which also, btw, has four arses.

HTH!

XOL

Maggie, Lleah,

This is embarrasing... as an expert I should really have followed up on these things... You're both right.

The eggs are indeed a crossbreed between the common Botswanae swallow and an ostrich. I had forgotten that ostrich eggs are actually cube shaped. The hatchlings will only grow to about 2m high and instead of eating cats will lay golden eggs. Sorry for the confusion.

And Lleah, you're absolutly right about those poisonous quills. I always get the wren and the ostrich mixed up... The ostrich has the tanks and the wren shoots poison. Wasn't the Berwick Wren nearly hunted to extinction for its tastey posteriors? In fact, I think Spam was originally 100% wren meat back in the day.

Okay...here it is. I finally got a photo of the birdies!

Aha! With this photo as evidence I can now say that these are unequivically, absolutely...uhm, birds!

yup, those do look like swallows, alright.

Look at the huge flanges on the sides of their beaks!
That feature is what makes baby birds look so much like muppets.

How adorable!
They'll be gone all too quickly, too. Enjoy them.

XOL