Wildlife: Help With Expecting Mom, 1 by DreamOfSpring

DreamOfSpring wrote:
I believe the eggs shells are somewhat porous to permit oxygen through, so that plus conduction of sound waves through surrounding materials should allow them to "hear" to some degree. I feel sure that some type of bonding is going on between mother and babies right now.

Lately, she seems to be on that nest ALWAYS. I have not found the nest empty in days. I put a birdbath about 8' from her, and the male brings her seeds. Yesterday, the male came back while I was outside. He sat in the neighbors crabapple and "clicked" to her. He was SO beautiful - the most fabulous and intense red ever. The crabapple has bright candy apple red buds and pink and white flowers. It was an awesome backdrop for such a gorgeous bird - and me without a camera!

At one point when I was elsewhere in the garden, I heard a loud, bird-screeching,fighting sound coming from the arbor. I hurried over to find birds "fighting". I couldn't tell which birds, they were just a fast moving blur. I yelled at them. They parted and went in different directions in the tangle of roses. One of them was a mockingbird on top of the arbor. I stood and fussed and him/her for a while, thinking that he was bothering the cardinal. In prior years the mockingbirds have been territorial; one year they repeatedly chased the bluebirds out of the garden : (

Then I saw this. oops! My garden is home to many families. I think I interrupted something...