To Ease the Passing of Time

When we moved to our cottage for the summer at the end of May, there was already someone living there: a couple of robins had built a nest above the patio door on the side of the cottage. The mother, and sometimes the father, kept coming to the nest to brood the eggs. We avoided as much as possible using that door because we didn’t want to disturb them. After a couple of weeks, we saw the neck of a chick stretch out of the nest, and then another one, and another one. The mother spent the next few weeks bringing food to her newborn babies. She kept flying in and out of the nest all day. It was a full time job.

One day, a chick flew out of the nest. A few days after, another one took off. The last one stayed a little longer. Maria saw it fly away. It seemed a little weaker than the others. Shortly after, the mother came with food in her mouth but there was nobody home. The nest was empty.

I wonder how the mother felt when she saw that the nest was empty. Was she sad? Was she worried about what was going to happen to her babies, if they were going to survive on their own? Did she feel any love for her babies like humans do? Is there any true love in nature or is it only instinct? Is love as we know it something that comes from outside nature?

A few weeks after, there was another nest under the gallery of our cottage. One day, I saw that an egg had been put outside of the nest. I went online and found out that mother birds often do that when they know that a chick is not going to hatch. I asked myself if the mother was sad when she took the egg out of the nest, or if it was only her instinct. There were two other eggs in that nest. One is still there but the chick that was in it never hatched. A saw the only surviving chick fly out of that nest a few days ago. At first, it was not able to fly a lot; it was mostly walking on the grass. The mother was there watching.