Baby Birds

This week, I read my students a book about birds.  Afterward, we had a brief discussion about why we shouldn't kill birds.  I will never understand it, but in Haiti (specifically in Jubilee) they seem to kill nearly every living thing they see: lizards, geckos, birds, frogs, snakes, etc.  I believe that is one of the reasons that the only real wildlife in Haiti is farm animals and rats.

During our discussion, most of my 2nd graders admitted to killing birds when they see them.  They told me they usually make slingshots to hit them with rocks.  I encouraged them to start appreciating the beauty of birds instead of killing them.

The next day, my students arrived to class very excited.  They were all crowded around on girl, Valentine.  She proudly smiled at me and announced that she had a bird for me in her backpack.  I was shocked but didn't believe her until she opened her backpack and pulled out a cardboard sidewalk chalk box that she had dug out of the trash the previous day.

Valentine explained that Santia, another girl in my class, saw her mom throwing a birds nest outside after finding it in their house.

The girls remembered what I had taught them the day before so they ran out and saved the nest and the two baby birds that were inside it.  They put them in the box and ran to school with them.

I noticed the girls had put some spaghetti inside the box in an attempt to feed the babies.

I sat my class down and explained to them how mother birds feed their young.  Then, I explained that because these babies did not have their mother, they probably would not live very long.  We kept the box of birds in the class all day.  We were serenaded by their chirping and I prayed all day that they wouldn't die during class.

One of the pitfalls of having our school located directly adjacent to the city dump is the fact that my classroom literally has hundreds upon hundreds of flies everywhere.  However, my students decided to go on a fly killing spree that day to get "food" for the baby birds.  Seeing them so excited about taking care of living creatures made my heart so happy.

At the end of the day, Valentine took the box of birds home with her.  Before leaving she informed me that she knew where the mama bird was, and she was going to go catch the mama so she could reunite them.

The following morning, my kids arrived with smiling faces.  When they got inside the classroom, they couldn't wait to tell me what they had done.  They said that after school they went together in search of the mama bird.  They found her (I'd love to know how they were so sure it was the mama, haha).  So, they got a basket and used a stick to prop it up.  They tied a string to the stick and put some bait of some sort under the basket.  When the bird landed under the basket, they trapped the bird and then "reunited" her with her babies.

I love my students soooo much.  I am so thankful that they are so ingenious and were able to have the feeling of saving the baby birds (even if it wasn't really their mama).