Taking Flight

Last year’s discarded woodpecker breeding grounds are this year’s charming starling nest.

Last year, a small woodpecker expended its precious time and energy constructing a hole in a dead-ish tree outside our condo — on the island in the middle of the parking lot. After a few weeks, if you put your ear to the trunk of the tree, you could hear the baby woodpeckers inside.

This year, the hole served as a conveniently pre-constructed home for a starling and her babies. At first, we could only hear them chirping from deep inside the hole, when mama came in with some fresh food. Eventually, we could see their little heads poking outside the hole, looking for mama and taking in their first glimpses of the Big Big World.

Baby Starling in her first home.

This past week, I’ve been visiting the tree; looking up at it, watching one of the babies watch me. We take each other in. I hope I haven’t scared it too much. What does it think when it sees this huge mammal looking up at it?

This morning, I woke to see a text from Joe: “Looks like somebody took their first flight to our balcony!”

With it, a video of the rear of our balcony. Tucked between the wall and a chair: a baby starling.

I immediately jumped out of bed. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but perhaps this context will help. For months, I have struggled with my sleep schedule. Left to my own depressive devices, I tend toward late bedtimes and later wake-ups. At one point, I was going to bed around 3 AM and waking up around noon. This may work for some, but for me, it felt like I was behind all day — catching up.

I’ve tried everything to make myself get out of bed. The only thing that’s worked so far is visiting nephews in North Carolina, and feeling guilty if I wasn’t out of bed in time to see them off to school.

Baby Starling pays a visit to our balcony.

But this morning? Oh, friends, I gladly vacated my slumber. The baby is visiting!

I throw on a robe and dash to the balcony to see if our friend is still there. She is! She’s sitting on top of a bag of soil. She stares at me, just like she did when she was in her nest.

I take out my phone to send a video to Joe. I take another video to post to Instagram. The baby takes off! Where did she go??

I quickly get dressed, slide into some flip-flops, and make my way outside. I walk carefully, slowly, because I don’t know how far Baby Starling can fly in one go. I don’t see her. I walk over to her tree — the hole is empty. Have they both left the nest? Do they ever come back?

I see a few starlings in the topmost branches of the tree. Is Mama one of them? Does she keep an eye on them as they take their first swoops? Does she ever talk to them again? Does she ever bring them food to ease the transition? Or are they on their own?

I look around some more. Where is Baby?

Yeah, I get why Baby Starling came here. This was her view as she grew inside the nest: Brown, brown, brown, BOOM of color.

Birds are darting and flitting around everywhere I look. I see an enormous bird — wait, was that … a pileated woodpecker? The woodpecker we had in our dead-ish tree last year was much smaller — we think it was a red-bellied woodpecker. But this one — this one is easily three times the size of last year’s woodpecker.

Oh wow. It is a pileated woodpecker. I’ve never seen one in real life, and here it is, right outside my home. I am able to identify it by its bright-red head and gathering of white feathers on the underside of its wings. Holy moly, it’s bigger than I thought it would be.

Okay, I’ve become a bird-watcher. My bucket hat and binoculars should be arriving any day now.

I take a video and send it to Joe. Then, I hear it — the call of Baby Starling. I look toward the tree the sound came from. I can’t tell you what tree it is, but I can tell you that it’s situated behind a dogwood, at the corner of our building. I watch, and watch, and watch.

Suddenly, a fight breaks out. A bluejay has flown into the bottom branches of the tree, and is squawking at two smaller birds that are also in the tree. They jump about, they yell, they chase. The bluejay wins. A few moments later, I see it leave the tree and fly diagonally across the parking lot to a large oak tree. It has a small, worm-shaped something or other in its beak. Is it a worm? Do worms live in trees?

The bluejay comes back a few moments later. I watch it more closely. Ah. It’s picking twigs off of the tree. Ah. It’s taking the twigs over to the oak tree.

Ah! It’s building a nest!

There will be baby bluejays soon!

All of this life, beauty, simplicity …

Love. Pride. Excitement. Curiosity. Wonder. Expansion. Peace. Joy. It all swells and swirls and expands from my chest, deep in my center. I am so very happy. Right now.

I have The Feeling — the one I get when I do something (usually something I “shouldn’t” do because isn’t there something “more important” to be doing?) and there’s a moment when my Knowing says, “This was a good decision.”

I can still hear Baby Starling — she’s calling to someone. Will the call be answered? Will Mama come to check on her? I hear you, Baby Starling.

I have a sudden appreciation for where I live. Yesterday, a coworker asked how long we’ve been in our condo, prompting me to do the math. Fifteen years, I’d told her. That’s quite a run. And I can’t tell you how many times during those 15 years the condo’s felt too small, too tight, too plain, too boring, not enough, not right. We need more, different, bigger, brighter, newer.

But right now … I’m so grateful for my tiny condo. Right now, it’s all I need. Because I’ve lived here for 15 years and, for all that time, all of this has been happening right outside my door. A whole world that Baby Starling is just now seeing for the very first time.

Good luck, Baby Starling. I wish you all the best in the Big Big World. And if you ever need a bit of home, you’re welcome back any time.

The last place I heard Baby Starling — at the top of the tree immediately behind the dogwood.