The baby sparrow's p(f)light...

We had a double storied house in Saudi Arabia, built using pre-cast walls. There were breather holes between the walls and these were ducted to the outside of the house, to allow for expansion. One of such holes weas about 10 feet high on the front wall of the house. I used to park my car in the garage and walk through the courtyard to enter the house and this outlet hole was on the left side, up on the wall. The hole leads to a small duct inside the wall and floor, which formed perfect residence for little birds like sparrows. There was no approach for cats or any other animals to reach this hole and the hole was small, so big birds too couldn’t enter the hole.

There was this small nest of a pair of little sparrows.

The hole was just flush with the wall and the sparrow has to dart straight into the hole for landing and take off the same fashion. They were well trained to take off and land into the hole, just like the fighter-jets take off and land on the Aircraft carrier ship. I and my wife used to watch the daring flights of these little sparrows and their accuracy in entering the hole, in-flight.

One day when I came back from work, it was just an hour to sunset and I was almost hit on my head by one of the sparrows, which darted straight on to my head from a tree nearby. He missed my head by millimeters and he took a turn and came back for me again. I was totally taken by shock and surprise, as they used to be very friendly with me and my wife, all along. My wife came out in a flash and pulled me in and slammed the door.

She then told me the story.

There was one small baby sparrow hatchling accidentally walked out of their nest and as there was no landing there, it fell straight down to the ground. This little bird must have been just a few days old and wasn’t able to fly normally like others. He was just learning. He was able to fly, but wasn’t trained to dart straight into the hole. He was trying many times, hitting the wall and falling down. Then hiding in the tree, trying again and again. And to add its misery, there was one big cat watching the whole episode from the roof of the house and a few huge crows circling in the sky.

I came out after few moments later, cautiously and watched the birds. The father and mother bird were keeping guard for the baby. By now they seemed to have understood that we mean no harm to their child, they didn’t care us being there.

When the dad was watching, the mother would do a trial flight from the tree to the hole, land there and look at the baby. Then it would take off and land on the tree again. Then both the dad and mom would make chatter-chatter noise, to persuade the baby to attempt the same. The baby, would look helplessly up at mom and dad, and realizing that ‘there is nobody to take him up there and he must do it himself’, he would make one more brave attempt, just to miss the hole by inches and fall down. The whole courtyard was noisy the entire evening.

And finally, after a full 2 hours, the baby finally made it to the hole. He somehow scrambled into the hole this time and immediately the dad and mom dashed to the hole and sealed it off.

My wife told me that just the next day afternoon the baby was flying out and in merrily without any help, while mom and dad went away, busy picking up food for the other hatchlings who were already inside the hole, sweet hole…

One thing we noticed was the mom and dad sparrow never tried to lift the baby to the hole. They always were guarding the baby, while letting the baby train himself. And when they were sure he can make it himself, they left him on his own.

Tags: birds, animals, mom, dad, baby, training

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