Sappiness Alert

So once again, I should be working. But I needed to pause for a moment of reflection.

I'm feeling so inspired by the family of goldfinches outside my office window. I've seen the male goldfinch come and go throughout the afternoon. He always lands on the same low branch of the tree, surveys the area around him carefully in all directions, then when he's sure it's safe, he flies up under the foliage to the nest. He passes a beak full of food to the female, who has been sitting on the nest constantly. When the exchange is completed, they sing to each other very briefly, and he takes off in search of more food.

During the last few days (excluding the weekend), it looked like the female was eating the food herself while incubating her eggs. But today, I noticed that she's not sitting inside the nest anymore. She's perched up on the edge now. And during the last exchange of food between the male and female, I saw her make the motions of distributing the food amongst an unknown number of chicks.

After a few hours of repeated peeks at the nest, I finally caught a glimpse of a tiny chick's head, poking up out of the next, beak open, asking for food.

:) :) :) :) :)

I'm so proud of this little family.

She had to commit to sitting on those eggs non-stop for weeks, even during our 100 degree plus weather last week. And he had to commit to bringing her food continually throughout the day. And now that the chicks are hatched, he brings her food, and she feeds it to the little ones. What teamwork! How the heck do they know how to do this? Is it learned? Is it instinct?

I still remember when the scrawny little male was alone and searching for a mate. It looks like he's done good for himself, and for his new family.