LOTS OF LITTLES: a little robin

Remember Swiss Family Robinson??? Ever read it??? My kids have. I think that book has contributed to their crazy ideas of capturing and taming a deer ... or a bunny ... or a duck. Also fueling these desires was an old-time kids manual {from over one hundred years ago} of stuff to do which we downloaded earlier this spring. In the manual, there were some tips about how to domesticate a wild bird ... even hawks, crows, and owls. My two oldest kids were thrilled!

One of the first sentences about capturing wild birds was ... "It is a mistake to suppose that keeping a wild bird in confinement is a sin." I explained to the kids, however, that some people are different about animals ... and might not like nor approve of their taking and taming a bird ... especially today ... in this culture ... where animals are often overvalued while some unborn children are undervalued and mercilessly killed. Furthermore, it's a culture where nature is often revered and awed without any credit given to its Creator.

All of this led to some questioning ... Why would someone have a problem with my kids taking a bird? Don't people take cats and dogs from their mothers? Do all animals serve a useful function? Were some created just to display God's glory? Why are there pests? Do pests have a useful function? Were there pests in Eden? Were they pesty then ... or is the pestiness of pests a result of sin? Would the mother bird feel sad -- or feel anything -- about her nest being raided and her birds killed? Would a mother bird mind if one or some of her birds were taken? Would the captured bird yearn to be free? Would someone care more if a given pet was a bird versus a turtle ... or perhaps a toad? And why? Or a particular bird ... like a sparrow might be considered more acceptable to capture than say an oriole? Why are some animals more "sacred" than others? What is actually different about the death of a bird as compared to the death of an ant??? Okay, I think I'm going overboard ... I was just trying to consider how other people might think about this ...

Some conclusions ...
1. Animals should be treated nicely when possible. Right??? This, however, brings into question things like bats, spiders, mice and the like. Most people try to kill these things when they are inconvenient and feel no remorse over doing so. So how does this square??? Does anyone know??? I sure don't :)

2. The mother bird isn't able to feel sad over the loss of her birdie(s). She has an instinct to feed and protect them ... but then they leave. They don't have a need to have contact with each other ... as we do ... and their lifespan is brief. The average lifespan of a robin is 18 months.

3. The earth and everything in it belongs to the Lord ... the cattle on a thousand hills ... and all the pets people have are His :)

4. It would be a learning experience for my children to care for and play with this bird ... and it would hopefully fulfill their pet-longings for a LONG time :)

5. I am definitely not a pet person and I would rather do without any sort of pet ... but Husband and I consented to let them take a bird or two.

So do you recall the baby cardinals I mentioned in a previous post??? Well ... my kids were hoping to take them as pets ... but that didn't work out since a critter got to them. But we also had a robin nesting nearby ... so the kids took her two birds ... one of which has already escaped. The remaining bird is called "Bobbin" ... named by Little Blondie who was trying to call it robin. The kids made it a cage and have been feeding it worms. The funniest and craziest part about it is that the mother is still trying to feed it! The mother bird has brought food to it when the kids are playing with it in the yard ... and also when Bobbin is in the cage! {I am going to try and get a video of this!} Someone had told my kids that once you mess with a baby bird the mother will have nothing to do with it ... but that definitely isn't the case here!

Here they are still snug in their nest ...