Purple finches and the shell wreath

For the past few weeks I have been watching a pair of purple finches nesting in the shell wreath on our kitchen porch. I found the wreath five years ago right after we bought the house. It was a splurge at the time and I remember thinking fleetingly that I could make one with all the shells I had collected. Truth is I probably never would have made one and it wouldn't have looked like this. I wonder if it would have had this kind of magic.

Each summer an average of two to three pairs of purple finches nest and have baby finches in the same cozy nest. This last pair had four babies and I watched as the mummy and daddy tirelessly fed them all day long. They grew incredibly fast and then yesterday I realized there was only one baby left. She sat alone in the nest all day long and I worried as I saw no sign of the mummy or daddy. I wondered what would happen to this last baby bird with no food from the parents. Then I saw the mother fly in. She didn't feed the baby. She just flew around her as if to say" Fly, come on it's time to fly." I took this last photo of her moments before she ventured out into the world. I watched as she bravely hopped onto the edge of the grapevine wreath. Suddenly she flew clumsily onto a heart sculpture nearby and then flew awkwardly to the sky. Was she gone forever? She was.

Will her parents return to lay another set of eggs or will it be another pair of purple finches?There is so much to know about nature. The more questions you ask the more you realize how much there is to learn