Birds in the Store….Spring has Sprung at Splashwear!!!

Don’t you love spring? After a long cold, gloomy winter…the new leaves on the trees, the flowers and the warmer weather? I have to admit, as much as I love winter, spring is always such a welcome sight.

Of course, one of the sites we see in spring is momma birds busy building nests and caring for their babies. What you don’t normally see is a swim shop owner caring for a wild baby bird….in her store!! Well, that’s exactly what I’m doing. I bring my new baby bird with me to work every day so I can feed him around the clock. And today, he is super hungry! I don’t know why he’s suddenly so hungry, but he is wanting to eat every few minutes! It’s hard to get work done when I have to stop what I’m doing every 5 minutes or so to feed the little darling!

Okay…I know what you’re wondering….where did I get a wild baby bird? Of course, I didn’t steal it from it’s nest…we found it and it’s mommy was long gone and I just couldn’t let him die….so…here I am….a bird mommy! As I write this, he’s sitting next to me, tweeting quietly….maybe he’s finally going to take a nap! Yup, it’s just like being a human mommy to human babies! (Well, that didn’t last long…I had to feed him AGAIN!!)

Anyway, back to the story. Last weekend, to prepare for the upcoming summer at the lake, we took our boat from home to launch into the lake and park at our dock. We drove it to the boat store for servicing and then to the lake to launch. We took the boat cover off the boat and put the cover in the back of the truck. Then we drove the truck a few miles and got the cover back out of the truck and carried it to the lake to cover the boat back up to await our first summer boat ride. As the hubby was trying to cover the boat, he noticed an inordinate amount of leaves and grass coming from the cover, so he shook it and out fell two brand new, tiny baby birds, with no feathers! Since I am a bird lover, he brought them to me. As soon as I saw them, my first reaction was to put them out of their misery….there was no way they would live long without their mother. But….it only took a minute for us to come to the conclusion, we could at least try to save them. After all, I have hand fed baby birds before….how different could it be? Right?

Well, I have never hand fed babies this tiny. It took some trial and error, but now, I think we’re in our groove. Unfortunately, one of the babies didn’t last….very sad, but we do have one very healthy, very loud and very tiny baby bird. As you can see, he started off pretty sad looking, but everyday he gets more feathers and a definite personality! His name is Larry. Larry Bird J….that’s what you get when the hubby is a coach! He has to be fed every few minutes during the day and his favorite place to be in our hands. When we found him, we had no idea what kind of bird he was, but now I think he’s a Carolina Wren. He will always be a tiny bird, with a big mouth!! Both for eating and tweeting.

Yesterday was Easter, but because he has to be fed so often, I HAD to take him to church with me! So, I put his little bowl in my purse, got a syringe full of baby bird food and off we went. Now, he’s a “holy” baby bird. Yes, he did sing in church, but no one noticed his voice was a little different! As they always say, God loves all of our voices…so SING!!

So, if you’re in my neighborhood, come on by the store and meet Larry! I’m sure he’ll sing for you too!

Happy swimming and singing!

Jeannie