Survival of the fittest

I went to the Twenty-20 match at the MCG last night. Australia v South Africa. A really silly version of the game. A bit of fun, but that's about all.

Anyway, walking home around 10.45pm I saw a small fledgling bird sitting on a drainage hole grate in the median strip down the middle of the road (well, where else would a median strip be). The youngster was calling out to Mum who was somewhere in the tree above. I'm guessing the baby left the nest perhaps 5 or 6 days too early.

The chances of a cat picking off baby bird at somepoint during the night were high, so I attempted to put the bird back into the tree. Mum was NOT HAPPY that I attempted to do this. Five attempts, five failures. Baby bird insisted on half-falling half-flying back to the ground. So I brought baby bird home.

Box in the laundry with some old rags made a nice nest and the following morning baby bird was itching to get out and about. No success feeding baby bird a worm... I guess I just wasn't sufficiently acting like mother bird. "Cheep cheep" just didn't seem to be working.

Best chance of survival was taking baby bird back to the tree. This I did... I have no idea if Mum came to the rescue, or if baby bird fell out again. I did my bit. Survival of the fittest, I suppose.