God's Wonderful Creation

This is what I see when I look out my kitchen window!
I wish now that I had been taking pictures all along to chronicle
this amazing and God thing of a bird's life cycle, well sort of.

A month or so ago, I realized some birds were
building a nest in one of theoaks in our backyard.
Daily, I would watch mom and dad bird bringing supplies
to ready the "nursery." It slowly took form and shape
and if it weren't forthe few longer pieces of twigs and weed
hanging down, it was quite camouflauged.

Over time, I believed that there were eggs in it due to the
fact of how the parents were behaving.
It's too high to look into and of course I didn't want to bother it.
You know what they say!!

Then in horror 2 weeks ago, I was at the sink and I looked out and saw
a HUGE hawk sitting on the branch!
Truly, at first I thought it was a Golden Eagle it was so big!
It's head was high above the leaves and it was sitting on top of the nest!!!
Taken aback, I wasn't sure what to do.
I saw the mom and dad bird sitting
as close to the nest as they dared!
What could they honestly do?
They were so much smaller than this hawk
and they could easily be killed too.

I'm not sure if babies were there yet or if it was the eggs he was after,
but I quickly ran out the back door to frighten him away,
sick to my stomach!
How dare he!!!!
(It is amazing that birds procreate with all the things stacked
against them,I mean really, well and sea turtles too, but I digress!!!) :)

Last week I saw the mama come to the nest and deliver some food,
so I knew there were babies then, but I still couldn't really see them.
Pretty sure that I saw some agape beaks, but no bodies!!

Then today this is what I saw!!!!

3 babies!!!! But if you can see 1 baby is much further along!
The 2 in the back ground have no feathers yet and this little dude
in the front looks like he wants to fly,
but his feathers aren't long enough yet!

So I'm thinking.... was he one of an earlier "batch"
I know that's the wrong term.
Or did they lay more eggs after the hawk incident?
Don't know, just curious,
but happy that there are some baby birds left!

Now I worry about our cat! I know that quite often when the babies learn
to fly, they often fall out of their nest. I really, really don't want to find a
dead, half eaten baby bird in my grass!!! So I'm thinking that
for the next several weeks it will be one of the boys' job to search
for baby birds in the grass! So we can rescue them from Shadow!

Not sure why I just posted about all of that, other than seeing
God's wonderful creation up close and personal!
The usual analogies came to mind and I thought about thinking deep
and posting those, but I decided to just wonder at God's amazing creation
and to just appreciate it all! We serve an amazing Father who loves us
each so very much and just like His eye is always on the birds,
I know He is watching me!!!
Thank you Jesus!!!