仙台 えいごの教室

 

　Do you remember that this summer a pair of great tits¹ hatched their eggs² in our garden? (If you missed it, you can go back to our old blogs of May 14 and June 4.)

　

 Since it’s not the nesting season, Will decided to clean the bird house. Look at the inside of their house! This is what they made! They lived in this nicely done nest . When the parents moved in³, they were really busy flying⁴ in and out of the house for the first week or so all for this, bringing moss⁵ and stuff to make bedding.

　

 

 Imagine how many times they had to go out and look for stuff and also bring in just a tiny bit which is a carryable amount in their little beaks⁶. I really admire⁷ their work.

 

  Now I remember our fun time with them, looking at their old nest.

 

  After they made the nest, they were really quiet for about 2 weeks, which means they were hatching eggs. Then, we started hearing the babies chirping⁸ in the bird house. We had a lot of fun every day! The parents were busy, bringing worms⁹ and bugs¹⁰. (Can you see a tiny shadow in the parent’s beak?) Every time when a parent brought some food, the baby birds’ chirping, which I couldn’t see them doing, got really loud.

 

  Maybe about 3 weeks after that, one morning, finally, 3 baby birds came out and they practiced flying from a tree branch to another in our garden for 30 minutes. Our garden was so busy with them flying around (actually, more like jumping) and chirping to each other. (actually, they went gee-gee.) Then, they flew away.

 

  Me and Will had such a great time with them that both of us had "great" tit family loss for a while after that. Ah, here we go again. I wonder where they are now…

◆1 great tit : シジュウカラ
◆2 hatch one’s eggs : 卵をからヒナをかえす
◆3 move in : 引っ越す
◆4 be busy doing : ～して忙しくしている

◆5 moss : 苔
◆6 beak(s) : 嘴
◆7 admire ~ : ～敬服する

◆8 chirp : 鳥がチュンチュン鳴く
◆9 worm : （ミミズ系の）虫
◆10 bug : （昆虫系の）虫