Yesterday Zach came to us and said that a baby bird had fallen out of its nest.  It wasn't a newborn bird though and I don't know that it fell out of the tree.  Dad said that we should try to catch it and take it inside before another animal killed it, but we waited to see if it's mother would come for it.  She did come right away and other birds started coming too. We saw other young birds that appeared to be from the same nest.  These birds were flying so we guessed that they were all learning to fly and this little one wasn't able to.  All the birds in the area seemed to be concerned about this one because they started flying around and landing on nearby trees and fences.  We watched for a little while and then went back to what we were doing.  A few minutes later Zach said "About 10  birds just flew down to the baby at once!"  He ran to the back of the yard to see what was going on.  He saw a chipmunk there and the baby had been attacked.  Now we wonder.  Did the chipmunk do it and the birds were fighting off the chipmunk, or did the birds do and the chipmunk wasn't involved?  The bird was still alive so Dad brought it inside to care for but when we awoke this morning it had died.

     This afternoon Dad was outside  planting in the same area  and another baby bluejay fell next to him.  This time he picked the baby up right away to protect it.  It wasn't afraid of him and acted glad to be held.  He put it back down to see if it could fly and it could fly short distances.  It began to fly back towards the nest and then we saw the Mama and Daddy bird fly into our yard along with another nest mate.  They were teaching their babies to fly.  It was a magnificient thing to watch and I'm glad we were priviledged to be able to witness it.