I arrived home late yesterday evening after a day at the family farm.  To say the trip and activities had fatigued me would be to understate the truth, yet I found myself drawn to the patio nevertheless.  Even with darkness shrouding the world, I desperately wanted to know the status of the two mockingbird hatchlings.

Silence pressed in from all sides.  This I knew to be ordinary after nightfall, at least under normal circumstances.  But these are not normal circumstances.

The young fledgling who climbed from the nest and settled in a precarious position higher in the tree had cried most of the previous night.  Based on that, I expected it still to be casting its sorrowful young voice into the air.

Yet silence still pressed in on me as I stood and listened intently.  Nothing.  Not one peep, not one squeak, not one scratchy cry.

I did my best to see through the tree’s dark cover.  It was to no avail.  Thick foliage prevents my spying eyes from setting upon them in the daytime, so what had I hoped to accomplish at night?  Perhaps I too had grown desperately involved with this brood.

Without a sign of activity and not a single noise to indicate the disposition of the family, I eventually returned to the confines of my own home and sought the restful embrace of sleep.  I would check on them first thing in the morning.

Soft light from a sun just heaving itself over the horizon filtered through thick clouds.  Perhaps it was far too early to see anything.  Still, I scrambled out of bed and stepped outside shortly after six this morning.

I didn’t need more light to see what I had feared yesterday evening.

Another broken body lay beneath the tree, small wings splayed in positions that made me tremble, tiny legs held out as though grasping for the limbs that once held them.  The second child had been lost.  Cast from the tree like its sibling before it, neither parent could offer protection from the dangers that lurk there.

Had it survived the fall only to be assaulted by a predator?  Or—and I hope it’s this—had its life been ended quickly before it reached the ground such that it would know no suffering, no agony, and no terrifying fear as some deadly creature approached?

But which one had died?  Was it the one still tucked safely in the nest when last I observed it, or was it the one who had journeyed out of the nest?

Then even as I stood with eyes feebly piercing the canopy above, down tumbled yet another small bird.  It was the one brave soul who had seen fit to leave its home early.

So the one in the nest had fallen while I was away.  And as I watched this morning, the third and final child had succumbed to its exposure and unsure footing.

It didn’t reach the ground, however, but instead landed in the bushes and now clings to those branches only a yard (a meter) above the ground.

I can see it more clearly now, although not clearly enough for a photo.  In fact, I wouldn’t take a photo at this point.  Something about the idea seems vile, invasive in a time of great worry and danger.  Like the news media when a disaster strikes.

The parents have already located the young one.  I’m not sure there’s much they can do for it other than continue feeding it.  They have no way to hoist it back to safety.  They have no way to protect it.

I fear for the baby as much as I fear for the parents.  They have suffered greatly at the hands of Nature’s unyielding take-at-will approach to life.

Watching natural selection take place with such brutality is very much unlike knowing about it without firsthand experience.  It’s ghoulish at best, at least sometimes… like this.

Dare I attempt to rescue the bird?  If I touch it, the parents will reject it and it will fall to me to do my best in hopes of helping it grow to independent adulthood.  And I have five cats to keep in mind.

Ay, poppets, these are troubling times, full of decisions I’d rather not make, replete with furious horror at what will undoubtedly transpire if I do not intervene—yet equally troubled by what could happen if I do intervene.

Would it be best to rescue it and take it to the animal rescue facility when it opens later today?

Why must I be vexed with these terrible incidents?

[Update] I stand corrected.  There must have been four babies, and I have been unable to differentiate them until now.  I can see the one in the bush.  It clings frightfully to a branch and remains still, yet it calls out from time to time.  Even so, I can still hear yet another in the tree.  The one who had climbed out of the nest is still alive and still in its dangerous position high in the tree.  It’s clasped to a branch thick with leaves too dense for me to see through.  However, I can see the branch and leaves shutter each time it cries, and I can see the parents dashing into that clump of foliage as they bring it food and sometimes sit with it, speaking gently yet reassuringly.  But what of the one in the bush?