Together and apart they arrive, leaving at once, providing for and abandoning their young, and all in short bursts of frenzied activity.  Wings carry them on air invisible to the eye and still upon the skin.  How I envy them that feat.

Hidden in the nest wait at least three young hatchlings.  Their tiny forms I have witnessed as silhouettes against bright skies.  Beaks face upward in hungry grasps for what a mother and father bring with them on each successive trip.

Little more than gentle sounds of ingress and egress are heard.  I’m left somewhat shocked that even in the presence of an offering, a meal desperately wanted, the young birds make cursory noises only.  Perhaps they are still too young, although I feel that to be nothing more than my own imaginings.

Yet mockingbirds they are.  As adults, their voices will carry the songs of many species in addition to those of any sound they hear which they deem appropriate to add to their vocabulary.  Why then, at so young an age, do they remain almost voiceless?  I wonder.

My eyes rest upon their nearly invisible bodies each time an adult arrives.  As the larger bird enters the nest area, I plainly see in darkened ways the tiniest of lives, each a fraction of its parent’s size.

Filled with much promise they are… at least the three I’ve seen.  They respond so eloquently with near noiseless pronouncements of their hunger, and their tiny heads and beaks lift toward the sky in an attempt to show they deserve a bit of nourishment more than the other siblings.

But careful and attentive parents see through this to some degree.  Each child in turn receives from the constant comings and goings.  Each in turn enjoys dining at the beaked board of mockingbird parentage.

So I watch.