The story of a bird

For those of you who remember, we had a robin build a nest right next to our slide in the clubhouse portion of our swing set. It started out with 2 eggs, then it grew to 4. We knew this location would be a challenging one with a cat and a 1 year old kid running around, so we had to keep a close eye out for the eggs, and keep the cat confined to indoors for a few weeks. Unfortunately, it was just too tempting for Brylee, and she had a great time throwing the eggs down...cracking 3 of them. With one egg left intact, we decided to up our security. The bird in the egg acquired the appropriate name of "Lucky". The days kept going and going and we thought Lucky would never hatch. Either he got too shaken up by Brylee, or it was a bum egg. But then one morning he finally decided to hatch! The kids were so excited and relieved to have him out of that egg! Here he is on his birthday...
We all couldnt believe how fast Lucky grew. Every day he got bigger and looked visibly different. Here he is at day 3...

day 5...

day 7 (he finally opened his eyes!)...

day 9 (growing a lot more feathers)...

day 11

and day 13, he finally decide to fly the coop. Here he is right before jumping out of his nest and sending the girls screaming for their lives! Guess he had enough pictures!

He hopped out of his nest, over to the railing, down off the deck and over to the fence.

Our empty nest. ):

Of course his parents were going bonkers chirping at him. We thought it best to go inside to allow the flying lessons to commence. We kept a close eye out for Lucky from indoors, but he hopped right into the neighbors yard into some tall grass and we lost sight of him. We knew he was okay and nearby from watching his parents sitting on the fence and chirping at him.

Some time went by and we hadnt seen Lucky in a while. We thought he might have hopped through the fence into the neighbors yard. Then something frightening happened. The cat got out! Someone left the front door opened and he B-lined it straight to the birds! The parents must have set off some alarm because all of a sudden all these birds came out and started chirping and swooping down at the cat to try to stop him. I watched him inch toward the neighbors house, and then I knew....Lucky had hopped down into the window well! I ran out at the same moment the cat jumped down into the window well. Sure enough, there was Lucky, about to become dinner. I grabbed the cat just before he pounced on poor Lucky. That was the first time I heard him chirp! I thought the birds were going to attack me, so I went back inside with the cat to watch, and debate how Lucky was going to make it out of the window well. It wasnt long after, we saw him hop back around the fence into our yard. He made it, safe and sound! The kids ran out to see him again. He still couldnt fly, but he let us take one last picture of him...

After that, he hopped along the fence towards the back of the yard and most likely into the nature preserve. That was the last ime we saw him. It was awesome to get to watch him grow! Thanks Lucky!