main menu | youngsters categories | authors | new stories | search | links | settings | author tools |
A Bird Called Marie (standard:Fan Fiction, 1302 words) | |||
Author: Robson59 | Added: Nov 01 2020 | Views/Reads: 1341/886 | Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes) |
A widower becomes engrossed in a nest of Peregrine Falcons | |||
After 40 years of marriage my wife was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. At the time of her initial diagnoses the cancer had mastasized and was spreading into her whole body. Two months later she was laid to rest at a small quiet cemetery in the country beside a church she had attended her whole life. We never had any kids so there was very little family and friends attending. After the funeral I returned home to a quiet and somber house. I asked a few women from the church to come and clean out my wife's closet to donate her clothes to charity. I couldn't bring myself to collect her things without becoming emotional and sad. The ladies came and took her clothes and jewelry and anything they thought was personal they placed in a big box in the living room. I left the box closed and untouched meaning to check it when I fully recovered from the tragedy of her death. The first morning of being a widower I decided to have breakfast on my back porch. My wife and I would often eat there on days I could sleep in late. My house was literally on the side of a mountain overlooking this beautiful valley filled with tall pine trees and wild thick foliage growing high up in the trees. My deck was eye level with a lot of the tall tree tops making it easy to see a lot of bird's nest. This particular morning as I sat eating my eggs and toast I notice these two huge “Peregrine Falcons” nesting three little baby birds in a nest probably fifteen yards from my deck. The nest was slightly lower than my deck making it easy to see down into the nest as the three little ones tweeted and chirped as if they were starving. Their little mouths all pointing upwards begging for something to be put in their beaks. I retrieved a pair of binoculars from a closet making it even easier to observe the falcon family from my perch on the porch. I became so engrossed in watching them that a couple of hours went by before I noticed it. I found myself going back to the porch every hour or so looking to see what was going on with my new found family. I finally took one long last gander that evening as the darkness made it impossible to see. That night I got on the internet and properly identified the birds and found out some interesting things about this species of falcons. Both the mother and father took turns hunting for food for their young. One guarded the nest while the other hunted. Their young can consume as much as six pounds of food a day until they are capable of flying away from the nest. The color of the little streak of hair on the tops of their heads determines the sex of the bird. The males have a little tuft of reddish orange on their heads that grows redder as they reach adulthood. The females remain black throughout. The little ones were so small I couldn't tell what color their crowns of hair were yet. The next morning I awoke with anticipation wanting to see my new friends. I quickly fixed my breakfast and setup on my deck to watch the birds as I ate. I was fascinated by the work ethic of the two adults as they each left and returned with food for their young. I repeated this routine each day as the baby birds grew and grew. After fourteen days the birds were becoming crowded in the nest. Occasionally they would stand up and flap their new formed and developed wings. They looked like they were preparing to take off in flight. The young birds were showing their hair colors now so it was easy to determine the sex of the three. There were two males and one female. I had become so attached to the family of birds that I gave each of them a name. The adult male I named Frank after myself, the adult female I named Marie after my late wife. And even though we never had kids I named the little birds names that I wished my kids would have had; Jesse, Thomas, and Lily. Now it has been fourteen weeks since my wife's funeral and the young birds were ready to take flight. Then I heard something I hadn't heard in a long time, “gun shots”. I quickly rinsed off my breakfast dishes and raced out on the deck, scouring the nest for my friends. Frank was perched on the ledge of the nest with the three eager young birds. But Marie was nowhere to be found. Click here to read the rest of this story (46 more lines)
Authors appreciate feedback! Please write to the authors to tell them what you liked or didn't like about the story! |
Robson59 has 1 active stories on this site. Profile for Robson59, incl. all stories Email: lavrob1223@gmail.com |