|
My house has two moderately tall bushes on either side of the stairs leading up to the front porch. Robins somehow view them as perfect locations to build their homes every spring. Each year there's a nest in at least one of them. This year there is a nest in both.
Last week, Memorial Day morning, I went out to my garage to do or get something. I heard a loud chirping coming from the direction of my driveway. I paced over and found a baby robin flopping around on the cement. It had obviously fallen out of one of those nests.
Hmm...what to do.
There were two challenges for this baby bird. First, of course, was its need for food. Second, was the neighborhood cats.
The food part was tricky.
I was unsure about putting the bird back in its nest concerned that mom might reject it if she picked up my scent. Heard that notion my whole life.
On the other hand, if I left it on the driveway would the mom find it and feed it? Do they do that? I seemed to remember they don't. But then what did I know?
I decided to leave it alone for now and went about my business. An hour or so later I had to run an errand and walked out to my car. As I turned the corner of my house, much to my happy surprise, there was momma bird! With a worm!
She was bounding toward her baby, worm flailing in her beak, when I showed up. Eyes darting everywhere, mom haltingly moved toward her baby, found its mouth and plopped in the worm.
Mmm...delish.
And I thought about this for a moment. Baby's in the nest. Falls to the ground. Mom finds the fledgling wherever it's at and gives it every chance to survive.
Nature can be cruel, but it can also be very kind.
Call me strange, but I immediately thought about poor employees. I thought about how sometimes they have to be fired. I also thought that I want to be a leader who gives them every chance to survive if they can.
I don't want to err, but if I have to err, I'd rather err on the side of kindness. Sometimes people can surprise us.
There are times in my career when those tries were in vain. That the more patience I showed a certain low performer the more it came back to bite me. That's not good, but I'd much rather have that then to cut someone loose prematurely; one that I might have been able to save. Yeah, I can live with myself a lot better that way.
Certainly, Mom was giving her fledgling every chance.
After I saw her feeding her baby I decided to do some research. I sprang up the stairs to my computer and popped up the website for the Audubon Society. Turns out birds generally do that-they find their fledglings and feed them until they can fly.
Cool, I thought.
That is, of course, if a ground animal doesn't get them first. I still had the problem of the cats.
The good news is that you can, indeed, put baby birds back in their nests...that scent thing is a myth. The bad news is that since they fell out once, I read, they will probably fall out again.
Well, there were still the cats. So it was worth the risk. I put on a pair of work gloves, gently picked the baby up and put it back in its nest with it chirping bloody murder all the way. I kept my hand over it while it was in the nest for a few moments until it calmed itself.
And I can tell you that two hours later it was still there.
I'm going to stop right there, though. I'll say no more only to say that the next morning there was no fledgling. It was gone. And I haven't seen it since.
Here's what I choose to believe: That it fell out of the nest again, mom found it and fed it for a few days until it was ready and then it flew away.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I'll be training all this week and then going away with my daughter for a few days so I won't be able to write you next week. So I'll see you in two!
| 
