There's a NEST!!

Last week Bryan and Courtney were in the backyard playing and noticed this on the ground:

They started looking around the bench where it was found and noticed that at the top of the arbor where the Banks Rose covers the lattice, there was a nest.  If you look really closely, you can see it in the pictures:

Bryan called Ethan and me out to see the nest.  We were careful not to get too close to it so we wouldn't hurt whatever was inside.  We looked around and saw a daddy and a mommy bird that were sitting on the fence watching us very carefully.

Yesterday morning Bryan went outside to pull weeds and saw 2 baby birds learning how to fly.  One had figured it out and was pretty strong.  He was on top of our neighbor's house.  The other bird wasn't so strong and so he was on the ground by our house.  He would fly a foot and then have to rest.  We watched for a while and Ethan took A TON of photos.  We left them alone and hope they didn't get eaten by a hawk.  Eek!

The nest is still in the arbor and the mom and dad were flying all over yesterday morning.  We are going to keep watching to see if they come back to the nest or abandon it.  We are pretty amazed that the nest stayed in the arbor because we have had some really strong winds lately and you would think the nest would have been knocked out.  Those are some tough birds!!