My cellphone sang with the ringtone I had chosen for when my 9-year-old granddaughter calls me, and I heard Imani’s frantic voice: “Cool Papa! Cool Papa! The birds are out of the nest!” While visiting with my grandchildren and their parents in New Jersey, Imani had pointed out to me the nest built in a cavity above the entrance door to their apartment. On the third day of my week there, I was able to determine that the nest had been built by Carolina wrens, who darted from the nest whenever the human family entered or exited the apartment. “Calm down, baby doll. Get a soft towel and gently pick up the bird and put him outside, next to the little bush beside the building.” While I was trying to soothe my granddaughter, her mother clicked in. “Dad,” she began when I answered, but I cut her off: “I’m on the other line with Imani.” Lisa was at work when her daughter called, but upon hearing that I was on the phone with the little, she commanded, “Handle it, dad.”
For a week, it had been a family activity for me, Imani, her brother Xavion, and Lisa and Bing to observe the birds’ behavior. I had found the Carolina wren’s call on YouTube, and had identified it in the woods near the apartment complex. I would jump up to look out the window when I heard the call, then go onto the balcony to watch the parents collaborate on which one was going to feed the chicks. The nest was just beneath one corner of the balcony, and when an adult flew into the nest, the chicks immediately started to “cheep.” Imani and I tried to see into the nest, but we were not able to see the chicks. I told Lisa that one day, the chicks were going to be on the ground.
“Wait,” she said. “On the ground? It’s cement! Should we maybe, put down some blankets, or something to make it softer? She really didn’t think this through! I bet the male picked the spot,” she fumed. (I did not tell her that Carolina wren pairs share in nest-building.) But now, the birds were on the ground, and one chick had ridden into the entryway of the apartment on Imani’s shoe, and was hiding among the basketballs. After I coached her on how to help the bird, I told her to call me when the bird was outside. Before I hung up, I heard her 14-year-old, long-suffering brother trying to guide her actions toward the saving of the bird. He called me once, during the wrangling shenanigans, and I reiterated to him that his sister should carefully guide the bird toward the small bush in the front of the building.
When I spoke to Lisa later in the evening, she told me that the two birds had finally flown into the woods, but not before Imani had held and petted the “so soft, baby bird, mom,” with its “soft beak,” and not before the panicked bird had launched a short flight that landed on the leg of a passing maintenance man. Imani was able to detach the bird from the man’s leg and put the chick near the little bush. Bing, Imani’s father, told me that the two baby birds appeared to be the size of the two adults we had watched for a week.
This “fledging” — the first flight of young birds — may help Imani to understand the life of birds, but at the very least, she has tales to tell her school-mates about her wren-wrangling.