Stop me if I've told you this story before...

This last summer Mikey came out of his room hollering for me to come and see this "weird bird" he spotted outside his window. I was expecting him to show me a Magpie or something even less exciting. You can imagine my surprise when I saw this Green Cheeked Conure instead!

The bird was perched less than three feet from Mikey's window and we could tap on the glass without it starting. Convinced it was some body's beloved pet we tried to catch it. He wasn't fooled by our birdseed/cardboard box/towel contraption and it didn't take us long to realize he was smarter than us, I mean, smarter than we anticipated. Eventually his belly was full of our birdseed and he was done playing our little games so he flew off into the field behind the house. Without any other options we said a little prayer that he would make it home safely instead of into the claws of one of the huge hawks that frequent Thompson Hill. The kids were deeply disappointed as they watched what they had thought would be their future pet fly away.

When we look back at the picture it makes us giggle to think how silly we must have looked trying to catch that bird, but it was a good lesson in trying to do the right thing even if it did not work out like we thought it would.