We found five baby sparrows scattered across the middle of the back lawn. I’m not sure how they got there; the trees the local birds seem to live and nest in are a good 20 metres away, and it wasn’t particularly windy. Four of the sparrows were dead and cold but the fifth was as alive as can be, squatting there on the grass with its eyes shut and its yellow beak wide open screaming for the world to feed it feed it feed it. I picked it up and we dug a fat earthworm out of the vege garden and dangled it into the bird’s open beak; as it gulped at the squirming thing and swallowed it the boy squealed with delight.

“What do you want to call the baby bird?” I asked the boy after we’d fed it another worm and an earwig and taken it inside to make it a nest of shredded newspaper and tissue in an old tupperware container.

“Sunday,” he said.

Sunday was still alive and very very hungry this morning so I fed him (her?) another earthworm and left him in the capable hands of A and the boy.

I wonder what will become of our young charge. Will he grow up big and strong? Will he fit in and get on with his own kind? Will he become all he can be and live a long and happy life? Only time will tell.

I wonder what will become of the baby bird, too.


A workmate leaned over my shoulder as I surfed my way through a few blogs. “What’s that? A blog?”

“Yep,” I said. “Heard of blogs, have you?”

“Yeah. They’re for people who need to get a life.”