A Bird Called Marie (standard:Fan Fiction, 1302 words)
Author: Robson59	Added: Nov 01 2020	Views/Reads: 1087/727	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A widower becomes engrossed in a nest of Peregrine Falcons

After 40 years of marriage my wife was diagnosed with stage 4 breast
cancer. At the time of her initial diagnoses the cancer had mastasized 
and was spreading into her whole body. Two months later she was laid to 
rest at a small quiet cemetery in the country beside a church she had 
attended her whole life. We never had any kids so there was very little 
family and friends attending. 

After the funeral I returned home to a quiet and somber house. I asked a
few women from the church to come and clean out my wife's closet to 
donate her clothes to charity. I couldn't bring myself to collect her 
things without becoming emotional and sad. The ladies came and took her 
clothes and jewelry and anything they thought was personal they placed 
in a big box in the living room. I left the box closed and untouched 
meaning to check it when I fully recovered from the tragedy of her 
death. 

The first morning of being a widower I decided to have breakfast on my
back porch. My wife and I would often eat there on days I could sleep 
in late. My house was literally on the side of a mountain overlooking 
this beautiful valley filled with tall pine trees and wild thick 
foliage growing high up in the trees. 

My deck was eye level with a lot of the tall tree tops making it easy to
see a lot of bird's nest. This particular morning as I sat eating my 
eggs and toast I notice these two huge “Peregrine Falcons” nesting 
three little baby birds in a nest probably fifteen yards from my deck. 
The nest was slightly lower than my deck making it easy to see down 
into the nest as the three little ones tweeted and chirped as if they 
were starving. Their little mouths all pointing upwards begging for 
something to be put in their beaks. 

I retrieved a pair of binoculars from a closet making it even easier to
observe the falcon family from my perch on the porch. I became so 
engrossed in watching them that a couple of hours went by before I 
noticed it. 

I found myself going back to the porch every hour or so looking to see
what was going on with my new found family. I finally took one long 
last gander that evening as the darkness made it impossible to see. 
That night I got on the internet and properly identified the birds and 
found out some interesting things about this species of falcons. 

Both the mother and father took turns hunting for food for their young.
One guarded the nest while the other hunted. Their young can consume as 
much as six pounds of food a day until they are capable of flying away 
from the nest. The color of the little streak of hair on the tops of 
their heads determines the sex of the bird. The males have a little 
tuft of reddish orange on their heads that grows redder as they reach 
adulthood. The females remain black throughout. The little ones were so 
small I couldn't tell what color their crowns of hair were yet. 

The next morning I awoke with anticipation wanting to see my new
friends. I quickly fixed my breakfast and setup on my deck to watch the 
birds as I ate. I was fascinated by the work ethic of the two adults as 
they each left and returned with food for their young. I repeated this 
routine each day as the baby birds grew and grew. 

After fourteen days the birds were becoming crowded in the nest.
Occasionally they would stand up and flap their new formed and 
developed wings. They looked like they were preparing to take off in 
flight. The young birds were showing their hair colors now so it was 
easy to determine the sex of the three. There were two males and one 
female. I had become so attached to the family of birds that I gave 
each of them a name. The adult male I named Frank after myself, the 
adult female I named Marie after my late wife. And even though we never 
had kids I named the little birds names that I wished my kids would 
have had; Jesse, Thomas, and Lily. 

Now it has been fourteen weeks since my wife's funeral and the young
birds were ready to take flight. Then I heard something I hadn't heard 
in a long time, “gun shots”. I quickly rinsed off my breakfast dishes 
and raced out on the deck, scouring the nest for my friends. Frank was 
perched on the ledge of the nest with the three eager young birds. But 
Marie was nowhere to be found. 



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