There are several reasons I wish I would go to bed earlier so that I can wake up earlier. This morning added another one to the list: I heard the phoebes after sunrise, but I dallied and didn’t get outside til 7:30. When I looked up at the nest–it was empty! They were all tucked in last night, and this morning, poof! Gone!

This didn’t happen in past years. They spent a couple of days in flight training from the nest, returning to it overnight. They hopped off the ledge onto various perches right around the deck, before staging into the trees just north of the house, and then later into the west woods. But this crew! They ‘flew the coop’ as a friend said, straight out the nest and… as I discovered a few minutes after my disappointment, right into the garden.

After I recovered from the shock of their disappearance, I turned toward the garden gate to go in and water the raised beds, and saw some fluttering… the chicks! I commend the parents. I can think of no better place for them to teach their chicks to fly and hunt. It’s full of grasshoppers, butterflies, and moths. I stepped back and watched for half an hour as the parents chirped, hunted, dropped down to feed babies; and as they flew together singing over the garden and the woods, demonstrating so many essential phoebe skills.

After awhile they had moved farther into the dog pen section of the garden, so I went in with the hose to water the beds. I continued to watch the parents but couldn’t see the chicks in the sagebrush and junipers in this transition zone between garden and wild forest. As I stood sprinkling the onions, I watched mama drop to the ground to hunt something, and she slipped through a gap under a chicken-wire plant cage stored in there: Suddenly she was frantically fluttering trapped inside the cage. I’m so grateful I happened to see it. I dropped the hose and ran to the cage, which has a flap on top that I opened, and she flew out.

Just as I got there she’d been trying to get out through the wire–which would have killed her if she’d gotten stuck. I immediately opened the other four cages. They’ve been sitting in there for more than a month. It had never occurred to me that a creature might get caught in them. You just never know what hazards you create for others!

It was so hot I stayed inside all day, but when I went out again this evening, I listened carefully, and heard the parents calling still from farther out in the woods. I’m so grateful for a successful fledging, and so glad I got to see some of the excitement from afar, and participate in a rescue so they didn’t lose a parent.