Two Birds In A Box

Linda and I have been avid birders for about 20 years and I wish we’d started way before that because birding adds a lot to all of your trips. And we have great bird habitat at our house. We’ve enjoyed seeing new birds from Texas to Italy, and the exotic birds we saw in Costa Rica were amazing.

This is one reason I really enjoyed the book, Two Birds In A Box, by KT Valliere-Denis Ouilette. This is a great story and it is a true story.

A family found two baby birds and the remains of their nest on the floor of their garage. They were sparrows and the family brought them into the house and spent a lot of time figuring out how to care for them and what to feed them.

Eventually, they noticed the two parents in the trees in back of their house so they began bringing the birds out and the parents would feed them. Eventually both babies, which they named Mischief and Blinky, grew up and flew out of their box to join their parents in the trees.

There’s a lot more to the story, but the book is just 59 pages long so you can easily read it in an evening. I really encourage you to read it to your children or grandchildren because the kids will not only enjoy it but they’ll learn something from it.

The author, Katie, lives in Skowhegan and is a dedicated member of her community. I eagerly await her next book called Friday Coon Capers.

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.