PUFFBALL: May he rest in peace...

The eyes of children are astounding.   On a recent walk, my daughter spotted (from yards away) a tiny bird egg on the ground beneath a bush.    She picked it up, and although the egg was cracked open, she realized immediately that the baby within was still alive!   We searched for his nest and it was nowhere to be found.   Our adoption of this tiny creature was immediate and wholehearted!   We carefully took the egg home and given the little tiny puffs of feathers coming from his little, skin covered body, Maya named him Puffball.    Over the next few days, Puffball grew a little, and began to break out of his shell a bit.   He was too little to eat yet, despite our efforts to feed him, he would not open his beak to eat.    Our guess is that he was just too tiny to be out of his shell-a preemie.   We put him in a little nest on a heating pad and launched a house-wide monitoring campaign (cat excluded!).   He was still quite active and moved around in his shell from time to time.  Once the weekend past, and he was still alive, my hubby agreed to take the little guy to work, so he could keep an eye on him, and continue efforts to feed him.   During this time, little Puffball decided to join his other little feathered friends in the big nest in the sky.    Maya was quite upset after school when she learned about his departure, but was peaceful about it by dinnertime.  We had all grown quite attached to Puffball, and wanted to share his story to honor his short little life!    RIP Puffball!