Blue Plate Special

I just wanted to let you know that I'm having a family — and my partner is a robin. Kind of like Horton Hears a Who, but with a bird.

Two weeks ago, a beautiful, mottled female thrush (aka American robin) started to build a nest on a tiny little shelf just outside my front door, but after a week of tireless work, she was getting nowhere. The shelf was just too small, and the beginnings of the nest kept falling down every few hours. But she just kept on returning with mud and grass, over and over and over again, seemingly oblivious to the futility of it all.

So one night at two in the morning, after I’d had a few at the local pub with my friends Karsten and Gareth and Heather, I decided to play GOD.

I had always been taught not to interfere, to let nature take it's course, but it seemed ridiculous not to lend a helping hand, like a good neighbour at a barn raising. So I scraped the meagre accumulation of mud off the shelf and tacked up a small blue plastic plate, which considerably expanded the foundation for her new house. I replaced the mud (about a tablespoon) and topped it off with some of the two square feet of grass, tinsel and string she had accumulated on my front porch.

I was worried that my “intervention” might send her packing, but I consoled myself with the fact that if I didn’t help out, she’d still be building her nest on my front porch when the snow arrived in November.

By the time I looked again at noon the next day, she had pitched all the grass (and tinsel and string) back onto the porch and built an entire cup-shaped nest out of mud (and a little grass). She left for a couple of days (presumably to look for some rousing good sex), but she eventually came back to sit our nest, just waiting to lay her eggs.

A week later, I peeked into the nest while she was out grocery shopping. There were four beautiful, blue eggs. We're just waiting for them to hatch.

I think there’s a lesson in there somewhere. Do whatever your soul demands you to, even if it seems hopeless. The universe will eventually help you out. Oh, and one small action can make a world of difference.