Baby birds and survival

For today's All-Area Softball MVP photo, I had an amazing opportunity that I could not pass up. Kirsten Verdun, hands-down the best player in the area will be playing on a new field next year.

That's because her old field is nothing but debris right now. Construction at Coal City High School called for the softball field to be leveled. The dugouts were broken apart, but left as a pile of cinder blocks. In my mind - the perfect opportunity.

I got there early to survey the site. It had just started raining. So I knew I would have to work quick. While looking around for the best angle and thinking of poses in my head, I discovered something underneath the roof's overhang.

Sitting there was a nest - with four baby birds squaking for their mom. It was quite evident that this nest wasn't built there in the last few days; it had been built in the dugout before it was town down. Lucily a construction worker must have seen it and moved it before any damage was done.

But where was mom? Surely the mother bird wasn't coming back!

When Kirsten arrived, I wanted to take her around the dugout for a photo, so I prepared her for "one of the sadest sights ever."

To my shock, there was the mother bird, sitting on the nest! Our appearence must have shocked her as well, as she flew away, but my fears were calmed for the moment.

The next day I drove by the site and the dugout was gone. Hopefully the same construction worker moved the nest again.