On Wednesday morning, I noticed a gray bird on the balcony of my study. Then another bird arrived, a white wagtail, bringing a worm. We had a fledgling white wagtail as our guest!
The little bird would get very excited when the parent was near, cheeping, then cheeping faster, then shaking excitedly when the parent landed with an insect. The parent stayed for about 1 second. If we were too visible, the parent wouldn’t come to the ledge. Once I saw it eat the worm itself, rather than come closer.
I got a camera set up on a tripod and took some pictures. I realized my white T-shirt was too visible. I needed to wear some camouflage so the parent would not avoid its baby. I put on a black jacket and a hat. I took pictures and movies of the little bird’s activities, which was mostly waiting, preening, resting, and pooping. I managed to catch the parent arriving on video. I got over-excited and mistakenly turned the recording off instead of on at one arrival.
There was a break around noontime when the parent didn’t come for a while. Then feeding resumed.
Later in the day, we worried about the baby getting too hot as the sun came around to that side of the building. It was too risky to open the glass doors though to put out some water. We didn’t want to scare the little bird and we didn’t know if it needed water anyway. It did seem to tuck itself into partial shade though.
In the evening, it seemed like the little bird was checking out the edge of the balcony. We thought it might be getting ready to fly. It must have already flown at least once to get to the balcony. Maybe it came from a nest on our rooftop. There certainly had been adult wagtails hanging around the building. We watched for a while, but no action. So we went to the living room to watch some TV. After about 20 minutes, we checked again and the little bird was gone.