The Unexpected Guests

I discovered two eggs in a plant on my balcony.

I hadn’t noticed Mama Bird building her nest. One day, there they were. Two tiny eggs. And since then, my watering routine has acquired a new complication.

Every time I step onto the balcony, Mama Bird gets startled and flies away. I feel guilty.

But the plant needs water. So I water it quickly, trying not to disturb the nest more than necessary. And then I look.

The first time, there was one little bird. A few days later, there were two. I hadn’t seen either of them arrive.

I simply came out to water the plant and discovered that, sometime between one visit and the next, life had happened.

There is something quite extraordinary about that — especially here, in the middle of a huge, bustling metropolis. Bangkok is full of traffic, concrete, high-rises and millions of people rushing about their lives. And somehow, in the middle of all that, a bird quietly built a nest on my balcony and started a family.

It made me think about how much of life happens while we’re busy getting on with everything else. We rush from one thing to another and sometimes miss the small transformations happening right in front of us.

A seed becomes a flower. A child becomes an adult. A friendship deepens. A person changes.

And sometimes, two tiny birds simply appear in a plant on your balcony.

Of course, being a witness also means trying to document the whole thing. So I have started taking regular pictures — although this is proving somewhat challenging. The best angle would probably require me to somehow position myself outside the balcony, which seems like a rather excessive commitment to wildlife photography. 😂

Still, I’m trying to keep the documentation going. Partly because I want to remember these little visitors, and partly because I’m genuinely curious to see what happens next.

For now, I have become a very reluctant tenant of their nursery. I water the plant. Mama Bird flies away. I wait. She comes back.

And I get to witness, for a little while, two small miracles growing up — while trying, rather awkwardly, to get the photographic evidence.