Crying Out

I checked on the baby birds yesterday and today. This little birdie, desparately crying out for food, was born sometime before yesterday evening. I don't know much about birds so I don't know why the other egg hasn't hatched yet, nor do I know what happened to the other two eggs in this nest. I checked on the ground below and didn't see any eggs or egg shells.

I do know that at least the mama bird has had some very traumatic experiences in the last week, well beyond any nervousness caused by me getting up close and taking a few pictures.

Her nest is precariously perched in a 'Miss Kim' Lilac beside my house. Last Thursday, a large crew of roofers spent an amazingly short three hours stripping off all the old shingles and putting on a new roof. I was home when they did it and they were quite loud, quite quick and I'm sure at the speed that the SIXTEEN roofers worked, shingles were flying everywhere. Mama bird must have been quite distraught.

Then on Monday, another crew came and took off all the gutters and put on new gutters. They must have come quite close to this nest at one time when they removed and installed the gutters on that side of the house.

In a way, it's amazing the nest didn't fall out of the lilac.

I just hope mama bird wasn't totally traumatized by all of these events and is coming back to feed this baby bird and that the other egg hatches soon.

While all this activity is taking place on the west side of the house, on the east side of the house some summer flowers are starting to bloom.

Coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea)
Mine is a passalong from someone along the way. I have coneflowers in several different places because they self sow. No one has just ONE coneflower plant in their garden, it just doesn't happen. And gardening friends don't let other gardening friends buy common coneflower plants, when it is so easy to share seedlings.

Tiger or Ditch Lily (Hemerocallis fulva)

Also a passalong, the only way to get more of these is to dig and divide them. They are commonly sterile, not producing any viable seed. It's amazing to think how much these spread through the ditches out in the country, without viable seed. This usually will bloom for just a few weeks and then it is pretty much just leaves the rest of the time.

It's got that "open mouth" look like that little bird. I know the birdie is crying out for food, what would this flower want?