4. 14 July One day, when she was in another lady’s office and she was looking out, she noticed a bird sitting on a nest in a bush just outside the window.
5. 14 July So she went outside and waited till the bird flew away and then she looked in the nest. There were two tiny eggs in it, about as big as her little finger nail.
6. 15 July Mum was lucky to see the eggs because most of the time the bird sat quietly on her eggs and Mum didn’t like to disturb her.
7. 15 July Sometimes she snuggled right down as though she was hiding; sometimes she sat up higher and you could see all her markings. Maybe she’s a Brown Honeyeater.
8. 15 July The mother bird didn’t mind people coming near if they were quiet; she just sat on her eggs , keeping them nice and warm so they would hatch.
9. 21 July A week later, when Mum looked again, one of the eggs had hatched and there was a tiny, pink baby bird in the nest.
10. 21 July Mum managed to get a really good look at the baby and she said it was blind at first with an enormous beak.
11. 21 July Later that day the other egg hatched too ,and there were two babies in the nest.
12. 21 July Some of the time the mother bird sat on the nest to keep the babies warm.
13. 21 July But often she would leave the nest to get food for the chicks.
14. 21 July Her favourite food to feed her babies was the nectar from these flowers; those babies were real Honeyeaters.
15. 21 July The mother and father birds brought back food for the babies and then went to get some more.
16. 22 July Sometimes though the mother just stayed quietly on the nest and let the baby chicks snuggle into her.
17. 25 July When their mother went looking for food, the babies spent a lot of time just dozing…
18. 25 July …but it was all beaks up when they thought that their Mum or Dad might be bringing some food.
19. 26 JuLy The mother bird would come and go but our Mum couldn’t go too close when the babies were feeding.
20. 26 July In a few days, due to all the food the chicks were eating, they rapidly grew in size and lots of hair began to grow on their bodies.
21. 28 July Then, the hair began to change into feathers on their stumpy little wings.
22. 2 August A week later their feathers had grown so much that they were beginning to look a bit like their mother and father.
23. 2 August Now, they had grown so much that they could only just about fit in the nest
24. 2 August When one of them poked up its head to look around and see if their mother was coming, its beak looked big enough for it to start feeding itself.
25. 2 August Now they’re 12 days old. They will sleep well tonight, all cosy in their nest with their warm feathers.
26. 3 August And then they were gone, out into the big , wide, dangerous world.