#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Fireworks, Needham, MA

Another cloudy morning, early wake up with Frank. Still adjusting our time zones. Nice chance to have coffee and conversation in the quiet house. Then, a swim at the pool with my daughter. It’s my day with my grandson while my daughter works, so we play in the yard. Yesterday, Frank found, in the rain in the yard, a fledgling bird in the grass. Failure to launch? He carried it indoors and asked for help getting it settled into a box and set outside near the nest it came from. We have many nests around and on the house. Soon enough, the mother bird came and we saw them there together. Wave wanted to touch the baby, of course, but we said no. Overnight, we assumed the baby had somehow been rescued by its mother, learned to fly back to the nest. But, at the frog pond, while we were playing, Wave fished a dead baby bird out with his net. “Look, Grammy! A bird!” Yes, but he doesn’t yet know what death is, and didn’t think there was anything wrong with the bird. Wanted it to wake up and fly. Wanted, in fact, to fish for more baby birds in the pond. I had him set the net with the bird aside for Papa to deal with when he got back. We don’t know if this was a different fledgling. Oh dear. Wave and I both had long, long afternoon naps, and then the family went to Needham for the fireworks and it was very fun. No rain! We got lucky, had great seats and a nice picnic dinner. Hooray! I found this swallow tail butterfly in the driveway today. I think the drought killed all my bee balm last year I hope to plant plenty to replace it this week as I want the hummingbirds to come back.

Black Swallowtail