Small Joys And A Surprise Return

You may remember last year’s post about Lou, one of Mavis and Marvin’s 2025 fledglings. I always had a special spot in my heart for this little one, and hoped he’d stick around for a while. He did stay around all winter, but disappeared around the start of this spring’s nesting season. In many ways, I wasn’t surprised if Mom and Dad had encouraged him to move on. Their previous stay-at-home fledgling, Lucky, remained with them for almost three years. While he or she was a well-loved family member and handy reinforcement in the frequent territorial disputes with rival neighbours, Norman and Nancy, s/he wasn’t a very effective nest helper, with no new fledglings born during the “Lucky” years. Norman & Nancy being yelled at by Marvin, Mavis & Lucky Below is one of my all time favourite videos, showing Marvin (left) encouraging Lucky (middle) to put more oomph into his partisan cawing during one of many verbal battles with the neighbours. It’s not the greatest video, technically, but I…