The Baby

Honeyeaters

Our Mum works at the Uni’ in Gladstone in a nice building with lots of trees and bushes outside.

There are lots of plants just outside her office window.

14 July

One day, when she was in another lady’s office and she was looking out, she noticed a bird sitting on a nest in a bush just outside the window.

14 July

So she went outside and waited till the bird flew away and then she looked in the nest. There were two tiny eggs in it, about as big as her little finger nail.

15 July

Mum was lucky to see the eggs because most of the time the bird sat quietly on her eggs and Mum didn’t like to disturb her.

15 July

Sometimes she snuggled right down as though she was hiding; sometimes she sat up higher and you could see all her markings. Maybe she’s a Brown Honeyeater.

15 July

The mother bird didn’t mind people coming near if they were quiet; she just sat on her eggs , keeping them nice and warm so they would hatch.

21 July

A week later, when Mum looked again, one of the eggs had hatched and there was a tiny, pink baby bird in the nest.

21 July

Mum managed to get a really good look at the baby and she said it was blind at first with an enormous beak.

21 July

Later that day the other egg hatched too ,and there were two babies in the nest.

21 July

Some of the time the mother bird sat on the nest to keep the babies warm.

21 July

But often she would leave the nest to get food for the chicks.

21 July

Her favourite food to feed her babies was the nectar from these flowers; those babies were real Honeyeaters.

21 July

The mother and father birds brought back food for the babies and then went to get some more.

22 July

Sometimes though the mother just stayed quietly on the nest and let the baby chicks snuggle into her.

25 July

When their mother went looking for food, the babies spent a lot of time just dozing…

25 July

…but it was all beaks up when they thought that their Mum or Dad might be bringing some food.

26 JuLy

The mother bird would come and go but our Mum couldn’t go too close when the babies were feeding.

26 July

In a few days, due to all the food the chicks were eating, they rapidly grew in size and lots of hair began to grow on their bodies.

28 July

Then, the hair began to change into feathers on their stumpy little wings.

2 August

A week later their feathers had grown so much that they were beginning to look a bit like their mother and father.

2 August

Now, they had grown so much that they could only just about fit in the nest

2 August

When one of them poked up its head to look around and see if their mother was coming, its beak looked big enough for it to start feeding itself.

2 August

Now they’re 12 days old. They will sleep well tonight, all cosy in their nest with their warm feathers.

3 August

And then they were gone, out into the big , wide, dangerous world.

The End