Deep thoughts about baby birds. Really.

Daily I watch a little avian drama while walking on the treadmill. There are a couple of baby birds - actually fledglings - that hang out near the bird feeder. They don't feed. They wait for Mommy. When she comes they make a bird-line to the feeder and try to land on the same little perch she's on, or sometimes on Mommy herself, and then they flutter their little wings rapidly and thrust their little beaks to the sky and wait to be fed. Mommy feeds them - for a while - getting seed from the feeder and crunching it up before dropping it down their gullets. After a while, she tires of this and flies away, leaving the babies at the feeder.

Here's the interesting part. The babies are still at the feeder. Mommy's not around so they don't do their little feed-me dance anymore. They are usually on the perch where the feeder has an opening to the seed. They have just seen Mommy reach in and get seeds. Or did they? At this point those two birds have no clue about feeding themselves. They look at the seed behind the plastic; they will occasionally peck at the seeds behind the plastic, but they - for the most part - will not put their little heads in the openings and eat.

One bird will actually reach in and pluck out a seed or two, but then he goes right back to pecking the plastic. I don't know if it is because the seed was not prepared just the way he likes it, or he doesn't associate it with what Mommy gives him, or he is SO STUPID HE DOESN'T REMEMBER WHAT HE JUST DID! So they wait for Mommy to come back.

Now folks, this will preach in Wyoming! You and I are often just like the baby birds, waiting for feeding time, or doing a little feed-me dance, or staring stupidly at opportunity right in front of us, or having once fed, forgetting where our sustenance comes from! Oh, yes. You can write parables as well as I.

But eventually these baby birds are going to mature. Or starve.