The Bird's Life

The Robins' Series - Part-Two
Day-Two "Kindness" - Five-Day Fable Writing Challenge 
Shut Up & Write March Fable Writing Challenge:  Day-Two [Kindness]: “The Lion and the Mouse,” 14 one of Aesop’s Fables, is a wonderful little story about a lion who decides to let a little mouse walk free after the mouse accidentally wakes him. The lion’s kindness is repaid when the mouse comes to his rescue when he finds himself caught in a hunter’s trap. “No act of kindness is ever wasted” is a beautiful sentiment and deserves to be echoed in as many forms as possible.   See  Love-Nest  (part-one)
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“You are the grumpiest of the grumpy-grumps,” the Mrs. grouched at the Mr. for the third time that particular morning. “Why is it that I spend all day on the nest, warming and protecting our precious eggs, while you are out galavanting with the Robins? Anytime I ask you to watch over the nest, I get all kinds of attitude,” she chirped.

“It’s not attitude, my sweet buttercup,” the Mr. cheeped. “I may appear to be galavanting, but looks can be deceiving.”

And so it went day after day after day. The Mr. stopping by every few hours to drop her a worm and a peck on the cheek, then soaring off to galavant in the sky with the male Robins, as the Mrs. sat patiently on four perfectly formed lightly speckled-blue eggs. She dreamed of the day when the hatchlings would finally chip their ways through the tough eggshells. Then, it would be the males’ turns to watch the young’uns as the females scouted for plump worms and chattered about the thoughtlessness of their mates. Luckily, for the Mrs. and her female cohorts, Robins did not mate for life. She would move on to greener trees come next spring. This was the cycle of the bird’s life. Choose a mate. Procreate for a season or two. Move on. The moving on part was all she longed for.

The day finally arrived when peck-peck-peck could be detected by the Mrs.’ plump downy underbelly. She hopped up to observe, perching on the fork in the tree which housed the love-nest created for her by the Mr. on their honeymoon. As she waited patiently for her first brood to unveil themselves, she heard cackling and tweeting and one loud honk overhead as a flock began to swarm into Robins’ territory, circling above her love-nest in the lush weeping willow tree.

She was on instant alert, puffing her chic-chick body to twice its normal size. She began using her big voice to warn off the flock of invaders. As a last resort, she would use the old ‘injured bird’ ruse to lead the oddly mixed variety of what appeared to be dull-feathered female birds, away from her new family. What was up with an invasion of females, anyway? She had never, under any circumstances, known this to happen. As they drew near, she noticed each female held an item in her beak or claw. She began to fret. Where was that good-for-nothing birdbrain when she needed him? She opened her beak to sound the ‘emergency squawk’ when she noticed her good-for-nothing Mr. flying in front of the flock, leading the quasi-vee formation. He had a big grin on his little pecker as he swooped in for a delicate landing on the edge of the love-nest.

The female birds, one after the other, alighted on branches to deposit gifts. Worms and bugs and bits of fruit formed a pile in a fork in the tree.

“What in the sky is all of this?” the Mrs. chirped as she ran one plush wing across her eyes to ensure she wasn’t dreaming.

“What in the sky is all of this?” a mockingbird inquired.

The goose honked loudly, “This is our thanks to you for allowing the Mr. to help us through the rough times.”

The mockingbird chimed in, honking loudly, “This is our thanks to you for allowing the Mr. to help us through the rough times!”

“Yes. The Mr. and his friends helped us, the abandoned mothers,” a sparrow tweeted.

"The abandoned mothers," echoed the mockingbird.

“They brought us food so we could stay on our nests. The male Robins volunteered to guard our hatchlings while we pay tribute to you and the other mothers for your sacrifices,” a chorus of tweets, chirps and the one honk replied.

The Mrs. looked at the Mr. in a new light. Where she once saw recklessness, she now saw kindness. She would reconsider the moving on she had so been craving. Where was it written that Robins couldn’t mate for life?
 
By Lisa H. Owens
Day-Two [Kindness], Inspired by a  Five-Day March, 2021 Shut Up & Write Five-Day Fable Writing Challenge
See: Love-Nest part-one
​See: Never A Swan part-three

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