Running Chick

Discovered these little guys nesting under my deck this evening when Josh was mowing the lawn. The picture shows three babies in the nest, but there was actually four crammed in there. One little guy got scared by the mower and flopped out, or his siblings gave him the boot because I was standing by the back door when he came hopping over to me. He gave me a "Are you my mommy? No? Okay, bye." hop, hop, hop, between my legs, hop, hop. Being the calm, cool & collected type that I am, I hollered "JOSH! OMG! BABY ROBIN! OMG WTF! (oops, don't cuss in front of the baby!) OMG! WHAT DO WE DO??!!" Josh, being the responsible type with all the answers, thoughtfully remarked "How the hell should I know?" After debating whether to put him back in the nest, or leave him on the ground, we decided to do the former. Standing on a cat litter bucket (the step ladder was upstairs) and supported by Josh, I carefully placed the little fella back in the rest. He promptly flung himself to the ground. Then he flew about 20 feet across the yard. It was a wobbly, low flying sort of attempt, but at least he could fly. Then his mother appeared and flew over to him with a worm. So we decided that was good enough and went back inside.