Between our house and the farm office there are two rows of plum trees full of dark green leaves. While walking between the rows of trees last week, I heard loud chirping sounds coming from a forked branch of one of the trees. I stepped closer to the noise and saw, at my eye level, a parent goldfinch placing food into the mouths of four opened-beak baby birds. The parent continued feeding them as I watched and when she flew away, I peered more closely at the very full nest. The baby birds had little tufts of downy feathers on their dime-sized heads but their wing feathers were fully developed.

They looked like they were outgrowing the cup-shaped nest because two were laying horizontally, close to the nest’s edge and two were more upright tucked deeper in the nest. I saw the male and female parents flitting around the nest, communicating with the babies and each other. One parent, the female, is gray; the other, the male, has a bright yellow underside. After the first day that I noticed them, I checked them each day hoping to see one or more take flight.

They continued to outgrow the nest until Saturday evening. I pulled into the farmyard after returning from the farmers’ market in one of our big, noisy box trucks. I stopped to unload some market goodies at our house but first wanted to check the nest. As I approached the nest, I listened for finch communication. There were a lot of birdsong exchanges happening from all directions. When I got to the nest, I saw one wide-eyed, quiet baby, listening to the calls outside the nest. I stepped away and whistled for my family to come out of the house to see the last baby bird. When Cassidy and Tim got there, the baby hopped onto the edge of the nest and off it flew for its first real world adventure. We saw it land on a branch of another plum tree nearby where it stayed for a while listening and looking around for its family. After I moved the truck to the loading dock at the packing shed, I came back to check. It had flown away. Amazingly, through all the wind, rain, predators, and farm commotion, the baby birds were able to safely grow and mature into independent finches. I’ll keep my eyes open for more delicate yet protective bird nests this spring.

By Trini Campbell, Riverdog Farm

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