Homeless

Every year an Eastern Bluebird has been building her nest outside of my classroom window. It's really incredible actual. With just some dirt and debris and a little bird spit, she builds a home on the completely vertical face of a wall. Of course, if her house plummets a great distance, she is far better equipped to handle this than you or I.

Each year my kids and I spend the weeks after the CRCT watching the progress of the bird and her eggs. There's always one morning when we come in and there aren't eggs anymore but babies. This is my favorite part. I am largely a fan of anything that is miniature.

My kids loved it! We'd talk about the birds and write about them, and we would generally stare at them longer than we should have. I loved it too. It gave us an opportunity to just experience something. I couldn't plan it. I couldn't control when the eggs would hatch or when they would choose to spend hours squawking because they were hungry. As a side note, baby birds are hungry a lot. We just got to be observers, and it became an irreplaceable experience.

Did you notice the past tense of that verb there? Became. A few weeks ago (I've just gotten to the point where I can deal with it), my students and I watched in horror as our birds nest was knocked down. It was then destroyed and the eggs in it. I know people think that middle schoolers are unfeeling monsters, but I can assure you they feel plenty, and they were devastated. I was devastated.

We thought at first that the Mama Bird was going to rebuild. She kept swooping a wide arc and coming back to her homesite. We waited for days, but the nest still hasn't come back. That bird is homeless. She spends her days flying in circles and making random visits to the place where her home once was.

My kids and I still watch her, and we're all secretly hoping that one morning we'll come in, and there will be a nest again. But for now, we'll just sits with her as she visits the place that used to be home.