First Flight

Reading Betsy's blog today made me think of one magical morning several years ago. We had a couple nests of house finches in our pine trees outside our windows. You could hear their little tinkling bell voices every time a parent bird approached with more dinner. I was getting ready for work when I heard a commotion in the tree, a lot of peeping and excitement. I looked out to see one of those little tiny, tiny birds sidestepping back and forth on the pine branch. I was so afraid he'd fall but I watched anyway. All of a sudden a whole flock of house finches buzzed by him and in his excitement he wobble-flew off with them. Then the next fledgling, same thing, etc. until they were all gone. A flock of house finches had materialized for the first flight of the babies. Needless to say I'd lost all track of time and was late for work but when I told my boss (a minister) why I was late he had to agree that was a pretty good reason.