Uploaded October 2010 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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The parents of this chick had reared three of them in a hole in our roof. I got home from work one day to find one of the chicks loose in the back garden. It wasn't strong enough to fly yet and was in danger of becoming cat food. What happened to the other two chicks I never found out.
I couldn't let it leave the garden because it wouldn't survive, so I managed to coax it into a large empty plant pot that had a convenient hole down low enough for it to hop through. I put some grass down to make it more nest like (what else would you do?!).
Eventually, one of the parents realised where it was and started feeding it. You can hear the calls between parent and chick very clearly.
By the time that I got home the following day it had gained enough strength to jump out of the pot but was still an easy target. Before too long, however, it had figured out how to get through our fence into the neighbours garden. I could see the parent bird guiding it in behind the neighbours shed and what happened then is anyone's guess.
It's ok to believe that they all lived happily ever after. That's what I choose to believe and there's not a fucker on Earth can say otherwise. The parent would make trips into our garden to feed during the following weeks, and it was my fancy to imagine that it lingered a little, and nodded in my direction. Cheers mate, it may have said. Thanks for looking after the kid.
No problem, anytime - I'd say. Out loud. To nobody but the bird.