A Tale of Two Birds

Far up in a beautiful pine tree sat a blue jay upon her nest, steadily covering her 9 eggs. Patiently waiting for the day her young babies will hatch from their shells. While waiting father bird was bringing mama bird her food, so she didn’t have to leave the eggs unattended. “Woosh..Woosh”, mama bird looked uneasily, and sighed a heavy sigh of relief; it was father bird returning with food. Oh and what a feast it will be, she thought to herself as father bird displayed his captured worm. Mama bird and father bird feasted heavily, and settled down in their nest for the night.

Just before dawn mama bird awoke, “Oh heavens what is happening”, she exclaimed, hopping off her nest. She peered at the 9 beautiful eggs, admiring them. Suddenly they began to move again, bumping into each other. “Oh, Oh Its Time”, she yelled! Slowly one by one each little egg hatched and out popped a bald, wet baby blue jay. Mama bird got back in the nest to keep the little babies warm. One last egg, she watched it with great anticipation, crack…crack….it started making violent movements back and forth in the nest. With on final crack, the shell fell open, “What, what is this? How, why” mama bird exclaimed, for she looked and not one but two baby blue jay appeared from under the one shell. She couldn’t believe her eyes, it was twins!! She nestled all of the babies under her wings to keep them all protected from the elements.

Later in the day, father bird returned with the usual evening meal, a big fat worm. Mama bird greets father bird with “Congratulations’ Papa, our babies are here”, she lets out a sigh and whispers “Finally”. She moves from the nest so daddy bird can take a closer look. He starts counting “1..2..3..4…10”, “10…How is there 10, we only had 9 eggs”. “One was twins…twins Papa from the same egg”, she said happily.  “Aren’t they beautiful?” she remarked. “We must not mention this to anyone else, the other birds will think… well I don’t know what they will think, just tell them we only have 9” he huffed. “But..but…what about when someone visits our nest”? “We’ll just hid one of the twins, they can take turns being out, that way they both can be seen but no one knows the difference” father bird insisted. And so it was, the two baby blue jays lived as one in the same. No one ever knew.