Baby

Just found a very confused baby blackbird on our veranda.  I suspect it had hit something and come down there unexpectedly;  it could fly, quite strongly and rapidly in fact, but without much sense of co-ordination or direction.  It eventually decided to fly down into the garden, and almost made it between the uprights of our balustrade - result: another crash landing, this time on the lawn, though no great harm done, happily.

Another short flight took baby to the paved area by our shed.  Here it sat, cheeping piteously, and after a while mother appeared, clucking and clearly trying to tempt junior up onto the sloping roof of the shed, where she was sitting with a tasty berry in her bill.  Nothing doing;  baby sat there cheeping, and eventually mother wandered off.

Maybe two or three minutes later she returned, still with the berry in her bill, to take up her position on the same corner of the shed roof as before, clucking, raising her tail, and turning her head to see where the youngster was.  It was out of sight of me (sitting at the veranda table, glass of Stella in hand), but from the crashing sounds I would say it was trying to climb up the nearby hedge to reach mother, not trusting its wings any more.

Mother decided enough was enough, swallowed the berry, changed the tone of her voice to something that sounded to me more like a scold (but let's not be anthropomorphic), and, moments later, flew off into one of our ornamental trees, the berries of which are a particular favourite with blackbirds.  Seconds later, with an energetic whirring of young wings, a second bird crashed into the tree behind her.