Summer Project #3: "Are You My Mother?" Edition

When I was little, this was one of my very favorite books.

If you're not familiar with the story, here's a brief summary.


A baby bird hatches while his mother is away. Setting out in search of her, he falls from the tree. He encounters several different animals...


A kitten...

A hen...

As well as a dog and a cow, asking each in turn, "Are you my mother?"


When they each answer, "No," he continues his quest, calling out to a car, a boat, a plane, and eventually an enormous digging machine.

"I WANT MY MOTHER!!!"

Right as he begins to cry for his mother, the machine lifts him up and dumps him back in his nest, just as the mother returns with food. 

And they live happily ever after.

Cute story, huh? Well, about a month ago, my family got to deal with a real-life version.


As Jace was loading the dishwasher, he happened to look out the window and notice a bald baby dove sitting underneath our huge tree.


Ugly little thing... 

Old enough to have a chance at survival, young enough to still need a mother. And guess who ended up in that position. Yep! Yours truly. 


When I was little, we had a few baby mocking birds end up in our yard. My dad would care for them for a few weeks, teach them to fly with the upset, territorial mommy watching in the tree, and off they'd go, never to return. Simple, right?


Not quite. Baby bird needed feeding every 3 hours, and when he chirped hungrily at 6 in the morning, I got to get up and syringe-feed him. We found some baby bird food mix at the local pet store, and things were working. He lived in a shoe box nailed to the tree he fell from and only got held when I fed him. 

After a few days, we began to notice heavy breathing and "clicking." A quick internet search diagnosed "aspiration pneumonia," a disease that occurs from hand-feeding when food gets in a bird's lungs. It's usually fatal.


Not gonna lie, I was afraid. Despite the fact that I was not yet attached to the fluffy thing, I was traumatized by the memory of the baby bird I tried to save when I was twelve. It only lived a few hours, and I was devastated.


So in addition to the scheduled feedings, Baby Bird started daily dosages of amoxicillin. Yup, the pink bubble-gum medicine (I LOVE that stuff) already sitting in the fridge from a prescription. And miraculously, he started getting better. During this time of illness, Baby Bird was christened Winky, and the shoe box moved to the kitchen counter (gross, I know. Don't worry, it got sanitized several times a day). In other words, he became a pet of sorts.


Soon, he was eating double what he started out eating, he was gaining weight every day, and his feathers started coming in. We took him outside everyday so he could get the "real bird" experience and hopefully connect with those of his kind, but he just followed me around the yard. I'd put him down in one place, and he'd hop over to me and huddle under my knee. He perk up and look around at the sound of my voice and fluffed his feathers excitedly when I picked him up to feed him. In other words, "Are you my mother?"

fluffing feathers in excitement, pecking at the food, smelling his fresh clean box

The time came to wean him off the mush and onto the seed mix. Well, Winky wasn't too excited about that. He likes his mushy stuff just fine and wouldn't even touch the new stuff unless we jammed it down his throat for him. Kinda like weaning a human baby.


Well, the time came to return to college, and Winky stayed behind. Mom took over the feeding (which wasn't as rigorous since he was bigger and ate more in one feeding), and Winky had no problem attaching himself to her. So he continues eating his mush and living in a box (a much bigger one now) in the kitchen. He knows how to fly, but will only fly across the room to my mom. He'll stay in his box if the lights are off. He likes being held and played with.


Poor thing doesn't know he's a bird. Mom's going to borrow a cage from someone so he'll at least stay in there. So now my family has a pet. Kind of.

scraggly, teenager bird

No, Winky, I was not your mother, and neither is she.