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The pride (and heartbreak) of parenting

Posted Monday, May 21, 2007

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I told you, April 2, about the yellow-crowned night herons I discovered on my morning walk. Micheal took pictures of them for me to share with you. You can still see those pictures here in our archives.

Then, they were busy importing building materials for their new home. You should see the size of the sticks those birds can fly with — reminded me of my German Shepherd, Dutch, who used to uproot small trees and bring them for people to throw. And you should see the bird splatter under that tree where she sat her eggs — that kind of reminded me of Dutch, too.

After the construction work was done, I knew one day that there were eggs, because Mama Heron didn’t leave the nest anymore. Then one morning she was gone. Funny little croaking noises came from the nest and I surmised that the eggs had hatched, so I waited there a while and sure enough, Mama Heron showed up with some food. Daddy Heron was right behind her, with more food. The food made the babies more noisy, not less, and Mama and Daddy looked harried as they set off again to collect more, more, more. I empathized — Been there, done that.

For the longest time, I couldn’t see the babies. I could hear them — boy, could I hear them. And the splatter under the nest grew to proportions that made me glad they picked someone else’s tree. But I only saw Mama and Daddy on their incessant back-and-forth food runs.

Then one day, I could see the babies’ heads sticking out of the nest, all wrinkly and spiky with the beginnings of feathers, turning this way and that way, their mouths always open, looking for Mama and Daddy, and making a hell of a racket.

On successive days, I saw their parents take an increasingly firm stand with their young. This was absolutely necessary — while a parent tried to give one baby a bite, the other babies would scream and peck at the parent, who would scream and peck back. I empathized again — I tell people Micheal and I only had the two boys because we were afraid of being outnumbered, and didn’t realize they would be taller than either of us by the time they were in middle school.

Now I’m here to tell you, those babies are about ready to leave the nest. It won’t be a minute too soon, either — the nest will barely hold the three babies, and they jostle one another so badly when Mama tries to feed one, I’m afraid no one’s fallen out yet. I empathized some more == our house got a lot smaller as the boys got bigger.

Mama Heron’s been pushing and shoving the babies out onto the tree limb when she feeds them. When she decides they’re ready, I expect she’ll push and shove them off the limb, too. This is the period of parenting, I think, that frightens us most of all — the moment when you turn them loose and hope you’ve taught them enough, and well enough.

Mama Heron wants the same thing we all want for our children — she wants them to figure out what they’re supposed to do, and go do it to the best of their ability. If they fall, she won’t be able to make them fly, or to put them back into the nest. But she’ll feed them there on the ground, and watch over them, until they can fly.

That may be where the similarities end. Mama Heron will go about her business when the babies are gone, eating and fattening through the summer, so she can survive the winter, so she can mate in the spring and do it all over again, for as long as she’s able.

She won’t revisit her empty nest, or grieve for it. But I wonder if that necessarily means she won’t remember it, and when it was full.

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