My untraditional Ostara's symbol: the unhatched egg 🥚

I have spoken about Ostara and how I make use of the changes that characterize spring in my previous entry. But there's something I left outside and that I wanted to share because it has given me so much strenght and determination for my life, both in a daily basis and during hard times. May you get the same things by reading this entry and remembering it. 

Hollywood and other cinema trends, commercials, social media and maybe even fairytales had led us to believe that life is easier than it is. They show you a main character experiencing some difficulties in life, but getting all of them over to be finally rewarded with a long lasting happy ending. I'm pretty sure this taught is wrong not only because it's not real but also because it conditions our brains to believe that if we work hard enough, we are supposed to get what we want. Therefore, if you experience failure in your life or you get to live unwanted things, the intuitive conclusion that comes from that view is that you didn't work hard enough. Next step is to get addicted to work or to have a low self-esteem (or both at the same time). But the good thing is that this view comes from the movies, series, comercials and tales: not from reality. Step out for a while and observe nature and life and you will get a different version of how things works. It's not as pretty as movies, neither as easy. But it doesn't has a finger pointing on you when you fail and more important: it's real, based on observations. Now, let me tell you a real story to explain myself.

A little more than a year ago, I was quaratined as it was the rest of the country (the rest of the world, actually). Quarantines in my country, during that time, meant that you were allow to get out of your home only for shopping and doing other essentials that I never needed to do (like going to the doctor) twice a week for two hours.  You were not allow to go for a walk in a park or hill and anyway they were all closed. There was a lot of people that never really followed those rules, but that was for them, because me, I was not going to risk myself in terms of the law. So I was confined to my studio apartment, alone most of the day because of my partner is an essential worker. But even more important, I was confined to my desk and my notebook by my teacher-remote-job and the professional degree that I was getting by online studying. I have never spent so much time in my life being so sedentary. I wasn't really able of realizing it apart from the pain and the changes in my body, because I was all the day busy. So I needed some support and I found it the scarce urban nature that surrounded my appartment.

When Ostara was aproching I was started to get a little bit tired anyway: work and study was being too much and the few movies or documentaries that I was able to see during weekends weren't enough to feel like life was something more than a "things to do" list that I was crossing out. So I let once again the changing sun to give me more strenght and one day, as if life and nature knew it, a couple of eared doves started to come to my window and the close ones of my neigbours. Two days later or so, they were not just coming: they were starting a nest in my neigbour's window. I was as happy as if the goddess of Ostara had truly coming to say hello to me (and also, to be honest, a little jealous from my neighbours at the beginnig, because they were nesting in their window and not mine XD). Although they were not in my window, I fed them daily (they just had to flew a little bit to get here) and spoke to them, and encouraged them (they didn't really needed it, but I did). I was so delighted that I even showed pictures of them to my students and told them that I was going to be a grandmother soon: some of them where quite exited too and one of them declared that she was going to be the aunt. 

Figure 1. Eared doves in my neigbour's window, with mother beginning to sit to soon put some eggs. There are pieces of bread in my window fence. 

Time passed and I never saw the chicks and neither heared them. One day when I saw my neigbours entering their appartment, I asked them about the little eared doves. They told me with sadness that the chicks apparently were born death; that parents even kept on coming for two days and tried to move them, but when noticing that there was nothing to do, finally left. My respectful neighbours burried the chicks and they moved from their appartment not much later. My students asked me about the chicks later and we felt sorry for them together and I reminded them that life is difficult and even birds have to pass through this things. 

But eared doves kept on coming during the year. They came during summer and later in autumn, and a little less but still every other week during winter. I kept on feeding them slightly and speaking to them. They started to come and go along my window's fence each time that they came and I did not give them food and sometimes you could think that they were almost entering inside my home. I'm pretty sure they like the variety of plants that I have there: they like the environmental enrichment that I have made for myself.

Winter 2022, I was working in another school in an hybrid system with only fridays 100% online and when the season started to end, my eared dove friends began to come more frequently. One day I realized they were making some testings along my window, like watching for the best place for a nest. I have only re-used plastic bottles as plantpots, so they were too small for them. I told them that there was actually not a proper place to nest in my window. They didn't agree and one day I started to see them with little branches in their beaks. I still told them there was not a good idea and they hurry to not listening to me. This was a saturday and on the sunday morning I told my partner that we could go for the recycling point and see if we could get some little box or a bigger bottle to put it as a pot for the eared doves. We got a not so great plastic box and I was not convinced it was good enought but in the evening there was an egg in the window's border. I just had to make the best improvised but safer box-nest that I could, which at least was tighted to the window's fence and I put the egg carefully over it (picture of that bellow). It was beautiful and frightful: maybe the parents were not going to come back after all the intervention, but the nest was so unsafe in our window's border, that we had no better alternative. 

Figure 2. Improvised box-nest where we putted the egg. It was about 4cm long and so beautiful, that we still made some time to take a picture when doing it. 

The next morning the mother or father came back and in the evening I saw a second egg in the nest when the other parent came to make a takeover. By the way, I studied that in these birds both of the parents sit in the nest: the father during the day and the mother during the night. Later, I came to observe the takeovers and was even luckly to show one of this to my students during the online lectures on Friday. 

According to what I studied online, the chicks were going to hatch between 12-14 days. It was day 14 and I still wasn't seeing neither hearing anything. I was affraid that eggs were not going to hatch or that chicks were going to be born death again. But we were not truly able of seeing much, because both my partner and I were working most of the day. There was day 16, Saturday, and the father came to the takeover. My partner and I slightly approached the window and waited to see if we could see anything. And we did: two little bold heads, stretching their necks to the coming father and leaving mother. We were so exciting to observe life like this, that we hugged ourselves, so happy that the bird-parents were succesful in the hatching process. 

Figure 3. I tooked this picture like 2 days later I think, so they were bigger, but here they are the two little bold guys. 

It was a beautiful first week of their lives, and we could see, but only during the takeovers, the chicks growing up. We were happy to see that they arrived to the first week healthy. Chicks and parents lived calm and freely, as my partner and I were at work during the day and sleeping at night. I still bothered them in the morning and night when opening and closing the window, providing food for the parents (that way they could feed their chicks properly) and saying them good day or night and encouraging them: but they just looked at me with calm (or indifference D: ...or boredom XD).

It was wednesday of the second week and I arrived home and saw the two chicks outside their nest, sitting comfortably in one of my plantpots and taking the sun. When it started to get dark, they just walked back to their nest. I talked to them that afternoon and told them that they have no reason to be affraid of us, that they were safe here and that they could take themselves the time they needed to growth and learn to fly (I was scared about that, because I live in a 10th floor).

Figure 4. The little bold guys listening to me while talking and talking, because they're so cute and I'm so happy, that I cannot get quiet.

One or two days later, I arrived home later (it was going to be dark soon) and was at the phone with my parents, telling them that I was sure that the little birds were going to begin to fly soon. While speaking with them, mother bird came. She started to move her wings as if she were showing the chicks how to do it. Then, the chicks imitated her. I told my parents that it was actually already happening and I was delightful. Then one of the chicks made a short fly to one of my pots. The mother pushed the other chick out of nest, while this one was twitting as if he was complaining. The braver chick then made something excesivelly brave: it flew to the air. It landed in a window of the 6th floor or so and I could see he was terrified. The mother encouraged him to keep going on. Then the bird flew again, this time landing in the 3rd floor, were there is a boring cement yard. It was already too dark to see, and even my own parents were expectant to what had happened so I hang them up. My partner has a monocular so when he arrived (which was almost at the same time in which I hang up to my parents), he tried to see the chick. We didn't know if interfere in this. The mother was also in the 1st floor, but we saw no movement indicating the chick's presence. The other chick came back to the nest (Yeah....I mean, after that I definitively don't wanna fly, no thanks). Then it started to rain: the bird mother left and my partnet and I went down and ask permission to get into the yard to get the bird. We took it and take him back to our window. The bird was in shock and I dreamed with him all night and when getting up at 4 AM couldn't resist to take a look: he was still in shock. Same thing next morning. Later, father bird arrived and I told him to please take care of his chicks and left my appartment with a tight heart.

Figure 5. I was obviously unable to take a picture from the chick trying to fly or falling with style, but this picture from Fauna Paraguay shows how it looked (my chick was very similar to this). As you can observed, the wings are already developed, so they were actually able to fly. 

When I came back in the evening, there was only one chik. I used the monocular to see if I could spot the other, but I didn't. The chick that was left didn't move much, but was not in shock, so I didn't even know which of the birds he was. Later, father and mother bird arrived. They both push the chick out of the nest and move their wings, showing him and encouraging him to fly. But there was no case: the chick was just twitting. It moved along my window and the pots, but it was determined to not fly. Both parents kept on trying until sunset, but they only got the bird to stay standing in the border of the nest, in a position like ready to fly, but never doing it. 

Figure 6. Once again, I couldn't register this moment, but
this picture from Fauna Paraguay shows how it looked.

While putting the bird back to the nest the day before, I observed that the chicks had a mess in the window border. I was worried about complainings about that from neighbours from the floor below and since I had already bother the chicks the day before while putting one of them back in the nest, I thoght that it was not so serious if I cleaned quietly around there. And with my presence, I got what the bird parents were trying for the whole evening: the chick flew to my front neighbour's fence. I was relief that he was able to fly, as I didn't know if this was the bird that had fallen the day before and if he was hurted by the fall. Next morning the bird was still on my neighbour's window; the same day, in the evening, there was no bird around.

Figure 7. This is the pot of my front neighbour, were the last chick flew at the beginnig (wiser than 7th floors) and were the parents also evaluated to make a second nest (but didn´t, at least not yet). 

Some days later I saw the couple of adults in the building that is in front of mine. I saw a smaller bird following them. Then I risked myself to look like a phsycopath to my neighbours and used my partner's monocular to watch them: there they were. The parents and two floors below, the chick, which was almost like an adult, but smaller and with different plumage. 

I don't truly know what happened to the other chick. One of the workers of the building, the one that gave me access to the yard, told to my partner that he saw a little bird, like a chick, again in the yard the day after we went to "rescue" him, and he went to see but then the bird flew away. Maybe that was the other chick (this happened the same day in which the other one was not willing to fly). Unfourtunally, when using the monocular I also saw a death bird in another building's roof. I thought it was the other chick, but later my partner told me that the plumage and size of the death bird didn't seem like the ones of our chicks and then he also told me what the worker told him. I have heard a lot of common doves chicks lately, so it's also highly probable that the death bird was not one of the ours (although I still feel sorry about the death bird). 

So: the chicks are now flying in the world, from what I know. I can't make sure that because I haven't seen them anymore. But their parents came back soon to go for a second round as soon as both chicks were flying. I can imagine them telling to their chicks: guys, you already have two weeks, time to make something with your life and leave the nest. We're using it for the next chicks. But this time I was too scared about the idea of a nest in the 10th floor, the neighbours complaining about the mess of the chicks and I was willing to open my window completely and just 10 cms. As I opened the window too much and took out the nest-box, the eared doves didn't decide to nest again in my window. I saw them test some pots of my front neighbours, but never established there. Don't know if they're nesting somewhere else, but they keep on coming sometimes to spend some time in my plants and eat the little bugs in the ground of the pots. 

And this is how we get success: while trying it again when things go wrong. These parents didn't make it the first spring, despite the effort that they put. Still, they tried again in my window and it seems that they make it unless with one chick. This story made me reflect about chances of failure and how, despite our efforts, we cannot make sure that things are going to results. There are always a lot of factors implicated and things do not turn out as we planned. However, how else do these couple of eared doves get a couple of children but trying it all the times that they can? That's why they were hurried to nest again as soon as the first pair of chicks flew. They know that they have to use every chance they have.

That's how is real life: sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't. There are threes like walnuts that give fruits with seeds that have to pass through a dormancy phase during winter. Some seeds sprout the next spring, while other sprout years after. This way, the three increases its chances of one of it seeds sprouding in a favorable spring and surviving. So now, during Ostara, I do not only focus on the proyects and dreams that I can begin to cultivate, believing that they will all give fruit later. Some of them will not. Some of them maybe, but years later. Life is like this and birds and threes have taught me that the only way of getting things, is by keep on doing them despite knowing that not all of them might succeed. So don't feel ashamed or not enough when staring at your life and seeing proyects and dreams failing or not ocurring: remember all the unhatched eggs despite parents sitting on them, the chicks born death or dying soon after hatching, the seeds that do not sproud and the seedlings that didn't make it to a tree. It's natural. But remember that the birds and trees that we see in the world are here because their progenitors didn't say "well it seems I'm terrible at hatching, so I'm done with this" or "it seems I don't have the ability to make good seeds, so I prefer to just focus on branches", but because without even thinking on it, they just kept on going, getting the most of any chance that they had. 

Figure 8. Egg in the floor, slightly broken, from another bird that I found in the street when I was writing this article, so I took a picture. In that street there are only common doves, so I'm guessing it was an egg from them. So, even doves, who has populated the world, have failed-eggs. Why wouldn't oneself have one?

NOTE: English is my second language and I am still half-way learning it. I apologize for any mistakes and appreciate any important correction. If you're a spanish-spekar, you may prefer to visit the spanish version of my blog, https://paganismocientifico.blogspot.com/