Circle of Life

Tonight after dinner, the kids headed upstairs to get ready for bed.  As Matthew and I were working together to clean up dinner dishes, he commented, "I haven't heard the baby birds lately  . . . "  My heart sunk immediately.  He was right.  Usually we hear the birds chirping each time the mother returns to our hanging fern.  But they have been quiet.  

Here is what I found:

Only one of four left.  I'm not at all sure what happened to the other three.  I guess another critter needed food.  As I think about it, I'm not surprised.  I remember finding a broken egg on the ground at one point and wondering how it could have possibly fallen out.  Maybe something ate that egg too. 

For those of you who didn't see my previous post, here's the life cycle of our little sweet birds, who nested in our hanging fern.  

That last egg hatched, and there were a total of four babies. 

And tonight:  Only one tiny dead bird left.  

I haven't showed the kids.  Yet.