Thursday night I was putting the chickens to bed and looked up to see all five baby bluebirds from the first hatch sitting on the garden fence. It was pretty awesome. They stuck around long enough for me to grab my phone and take this shot, which isn’t great because it was almost dark. But they’re there, and still all together!

It was wonderful to see them all doing so well.

Then, as I was making my tea Friday morning I looked out to see blue feathers in the grass by the porch. My heart sank. It’s amazing to me how around here joy can turn to sorrow with just the sight of feathers on the ground.

I went outside and found this little gal (?) I think she flew into the glass panel at the bottom of the porch.

She wasn’t dead, but her legs looked a little crumpled. I picked her up to make sure they weren’t.

She did that thing birds do where she closed her eyes and deflated, a sign I know as shock and a leap toward death. So I quickly put her back down in the grass and ran in the house for some rescue remedy. I dribbled a few drops on her head and retreated to watch her through the window. In about a minute her closed eyes opened and she picked up her head to look around. It was a 180 degree turn. I was preparing a tiny bowl of water for her when she jumped up and flew off in the direction of her old nest box. Her dad flew out from attending to his second family. The little girl perched in the base of an evergreen, and when I checked back a few minutes later, she had flown away.