Rewilding My Lot

While eating lunch on the back patio one day I noticed some odd activity among sunflowers near our Texas Mountain Laurel tree. With the aid of binoculars, I was able to see that there was a dark-colored baby bird sitting about halfway up a sunflower stem, apparently unable to fly.

Nearby on the fence was a female cardinal calling every few seconds, and in fact at one point it flew down to the same area as the baby chick.

Based on this behavior and my ignorance of birds, I initially thought that the young chick was a cardinal that had perhaps left its nest too early and that the female was taking care of it until it could fly. It turns out that I was mistaken and the baby bird is actually a young grackle.

This situation (baby grackle in the sunflowers, female cardinal on the fence) remained the same for most of the day. I’ll call that Day One.

The next morning (Day Two) while eating breakfast, I watched the cardinal behave the same way but in a slightly different location. This time she was on the back fence and sometimes she flew into the Desert Willow tree. That made me suspect that the baby was in that tree, which was indeed the case. This seems to be a safer location than on a sunflower stem for stability, concealment, and shade, so I’m glad it made it there and apparently it had enough mobility to get up into the tree branches.

When I checked a few other times that day, the chick was on different branches of the same Desert Willow tree, and the cardinal was usually nearby (still frequently calling).

The chick spent Day Three on various branches of the Desert Willow with the cardinal usually on the fence not far away. Even if I approached a little closer to take a photograph, the chick always remained still and silent.

On the morning of Day Four, the cardinal was on the fence, but I couldn’t see the baby in the Desert Willow tree. Eventually I spotted it on another piece of fence nearby. Apparently my neighbor had found it on the ground and not knowing its history put it up on the fence while he decided what to do next.

Since the chick had spent the past three days in my Desert Willow tree, I decided to return it back there, where at least it could have some shade and be more hidden.

An hour later it had disappeared. I decided at that point to stop looking for it, and to not intervene if I happened to find it.

Unexpectedly that afternoon I saw it again, sitting in the shade of the back fence.

On Days Five and Six, I did not see the chick but I did continue to see the cardinal, who was calling and flying to different nearby fence and tree locations. After those two days, I stopped seeing the cardinal as well.

That is the end of the story as I know it! I’m glad that my garden has been a refuge for this stray baby grackle and I hope that it has the opportunity to grow to be an adult.

But I am left with some unsolved mysteries! Where did the grackle come from — did it fall out of a nearby nest? Why was a female cardinal so interested in this particular chick that was not hers? I never saw any feeding take place, but there were certainly multiple close interactions. What was the grackle chick eating while it was in the garden? And did it eventually get strong enough to fly away?