Yesterday afternoon when I let Sparkle out of the front door, she bounded toward a chair beneath the tree. Up fluttered a fledgeling robin! With a great deal of flapping, he skimmed above the rose bed before his engine conked out and he crash-landed in the cedar hedge.

In a trice, his handsome mother and father appeared, loudly voicing their concern from atop the shepherd’s crook that holds the bird feeders.

Where was junior?

Oh, there he is just outside the rose bed.

Mother Robin flew down and gave him an energy bar of some kind.

Testing out the wonders of being independent, he hopped about the lawn, almost hidden in the tall grass

“Now, where was I before that barking blast of white came charging toward me?”

“Ah, yes. I was checking out the McDonalds’ new chaise.“

“I think this whole episode started when my parents tried to introduce me and my siblings to the birdbaths at McDonalds’. Our beaks were agape in this wicked heatwave and we were all for it. But stay back! My father is a splash-o-maniac . . . and I want to be just like him!“