There’s a nest in the rhododendron outside our craft room window, right next to our kitchen entry. It’s only inches from the window, so we can see what’s going on inside quite clearly. In the Spring we watched a mother robin hatch her eggs, and the past few weeks the nest has had a new occupant, who hatched one egg herself.
Today the baby ventured out of the nest. I swung around the butterfly bush all ready to hop up the stairs into the house and stopped dead in my tracks, sure I’d scare it away.
It (she, he?) was completely unfazed by me. I talked to it, walked up and down the stairs, and got within a foot of it to take some pictures. I guess considering I walk by the nest regularly that’s not too surprising, but I was surprised, and happy.
My dad used to carry birdseed in the pocket of his jean jacket when he worked in the yard. He showed us how to stand very still with our arms outstretched and seed in our palms so the chickadees would learn to trust us and eat from our hands as they did from his. Sometimes birds would land on his shoulders or on the flap that covered his pocket as he went about his work. I thought that was magical.
Still do.
Another Roadside Attraction 
oh my gosh, he/she is adorable.