A Small Tragedy
By Diane Neil, High Desert Branch
The animal kingdom is filled with wonderful examples of mother love. With their inferior brains and no formal education, no obstetricians, Lamaze classes, doctors and nurses and mothering lessons, they far outstrip most human mothers in caring for their young.
I refer to the many desert animals I am privileged to observe on a daily basis, specifically the birds that inhabit our modest acreage. I am most acquainted with the clever clown ravens. Once a baby raven just learning to fly dropped into our yard. Its mother squawked and nagged and scolded until it managed to fly up to the fence and drop to the other side. What a walloping the poor thing got as the mother mercilessly continued its flying lessons as if the survival of the species depends on its learning to fly with the flock. (And it does.)
Recently my husband was cleaning our roof gutters from two year’s worth of debris. He found a little bird nest with three pale blue empty eggs the size of tiny jelly beans. Something had prevented the mother from returning to her nesting duties. I hate to think that she met her doom as a food source for a larger bird. But I can’t imagine what else would have kept her from hatching the eggs.
I keep the nest where I can see it every day. It is one of my prized possessions, sharing shelf space with other nests, cocoons, beautiful shells and sea-sculpted rocks.
Although that mother bird was unable to bring forth her chicks, I honor her effort to try.
Diane Neil, has written for many Showcase departments,
most recently for Poetry,
(“Book Review,” April 2018).