Explore
Category
-
Funny Video & Movies
- Funny Video & Movies
- Funny animal videos
- Funny cat videos
- Funny dog videos
- Funny car videos
- Funny game videos
- Funny Asian videos
- Funny video commercials
- Funny sports & games videos
- Funny kid videos
- Funny sexy videos
- Funny cartoon videos
- Funny adult videos
- Funny celebrity videos
- Funny stupid videos
- Funny romance videos
- Funny man videos
- Funny woman videos
- Funny gay & lesbian videos
- Funny political videos
- Funny work/office videos
- Funny movie trailers
- Funny music videos
- Funny football videos
- Funny family videos
- Funny travel videos
- Funny science videos
- Funny halloween videos
- Funny Christmas videos
- Funny Valentine videos
- Funny thanksgiving videos
-
Funny Cartoons
- Funny Cartoons
- Greeting card cartoons
- Funny sexy cartoons
- Funny political cartoons
- Funny Thanksgiving cartoons
- Funny animals cartoons
- Funny dog cartoons
- Funny animated cartoons
- Funny women cartoons
- Funny wedding cartoons
- Funny drunk cartoons
- Funny nude cartoons
- Crazy frog cartoons
- Funny work cartoons
- Funny Christmas cartoons
- Funny Birthday cartoons
- Funny cat cartoons
- Funny sport cartoons
- Funny gay cartoons
- Funny men cartoons
- Funny police cartoons
- Funny love cartoons
- Funny kid cartoons
- Funny Flashes
- Funny Sounds
-
Funny Ringtones
- Funny Ringtones
- Funny ringtones
- Exciting ringtones
- Mystery ringtones
- Nature ringtones
- Romantic ringtones
- War ringtones
- Halloween ringtones
- New Year & Xmas ringtones
- Techno ringtones
- Valentine ringtones
- DJ ringtones
- Scary ringtones
- Crazy ringtones
- Movie ringtones
- Music ringtones
- Funny animal ringtones
- Alien ringtones
- Accessory ringtones
- Bell ringtones
- Mosquito ringtones
- Human sound ringtones
- Instrumental ringtones
- Arabic ringtones
- Kids ringtones
- Rock ringtones
- Ethnic ringtones
- Happy birthday ringtones
- Rap ringtones
- Breakdance ringtone
- Voice ringtones
- Opera ringtones
- Games ringtones
- Lounge ringtones
- Funny instrument ringtones
- Drunk ringtones
- Laugh ringtones
- Electronic melody ringtone
- Dirty ringtone
- Miscellaneous ringtones
- Thanksgiving ringtones
- Mouse ringtones
- Baby ringtones
-
Audio Clips
- Audio Clips
- Effects audio clip
- Funny audio clip
- Music audio clip
- Weird audio clip
- Erotic audio clip
- Christmas audio clip
- Halloween/scary audio clip
- Birthday audio clip
- Laugh audio clip
- Animal audio clip
- Nature audio clip
- Voice audio clip
- Scream audio clip
- Instrumental audio clip
- Non-vocal songs
- MIDI Store
- Funny Remixes
- Funny Song Parodies
-
Funny Pictures
- Funny Pictures
- Animal photos
- Baby pictures
- Car photos
- Celebrity photos
- Funny photos
- Holidays photos
- House pictures
- Kiss pictures
- New world wonder photos
- Pet gallery
- Playboy photos
- Sportsmen photo
- War photos
- Wedding photos
- Valentine pictures
- Halloween pictures
- American Idol photos
- Black and White pictures
- Christmas photos
- Tattoo pictures
- Winter photos
- Summer photos
- Autumn photos
- Spring photos
- Beach photos
- Sunset photos
- Aerial photos
- Prom pictures
- Flower pictures
- Country photos
- 7 world wonders photos
- Garden pictures
- Movie picture
- Thanksgiving pictures
- Miscellaneous pictures
-
Wallpapers
- Wallpapers
- Animated/Cartoon Wallpaper
- Funny Wallpaper
- Celebrity Wallpaper
- Sexy Wallpaper
- 3D and Digital art Wallpaper
- Valentine/Love Wallpaper
- Nature Wallpaper
- Game Wallpaper
- Movie Wallpaper
- Music Wallpaper
- Christmas Wallpaper
- Flower Wallpaper
- Beach Wallpaper
- Final fantasy Wallpaper
- Car Wallpaper
- Animal Wallpaper
- Landscape Wallpaper
- Art Wallpaper
- Photograph Wallpaper
- Space Wallpaper
- Sport Wallpaper
- Military Wallpaper
- Model Wallpaper
- Bikini Wallpaper
- Thanksgiving Wallpaper
-
Funny Jokes
- Funny Jokes
- Kid jokes
- Blonde jokes
- Adult jokes
- Political jokes
- Family jokes
- School jokes
- Clean jokes
- Funny quotes
- Lawyer quotes
- Bar Jokes
- Free jokes
- Animal jokes
- Business jokes
- Celebrities jokes
- Christmas jokes
- Computer jokes
- Condom jokes
- Crazy jokes
- Dirty jokes
- Drunk jokes
- Food jokes
- Gays & Lesbians jokes
- Gender jokes
- Holidays jokes
- Job jokes
- Lawyer jokes
- Marriage jokes
- Medical jokes
- Office jokes
- Redneck jokes
- Sex jokes
- Sports jokes
- Women jokes
- Work jokes
- Halloween jokes
- Thanksgiving jokes
-
Short Stories
- Short Stories
- Best short story
- Romance/Love short story
- Children short story
- Teen short story
- Christmas short story
- Biography short story
- Funny short story
- Scary/Horror short story
- Classic short story
- American short story
- British short story
- Australian short story
- Fiction short story
- Science fiction short story
- Adult short story
- Family short story
- Gay/Lesbian short story
- Inspirational short story
- Fairy tale short story
- Chicken soup for soul
-
Funny Quizzes
- Quizzes
- Personality quiz
- Romance/love quiz
- Teen quiz
- Movie quiz
- Music quiz
- Funny sex quiz
- Funny Q&A
- Kid quiz
- IQ test
- EQ test
- Animal quiz
- Celebrities quiz
- Entertainment quiz
- Geography quiz
- History quiz
- Literature quiz
- Math quiz
- Science quiz
- People quiz
- Religion quiz
- World quiz
- Funny game
- Humanities quiz
- Hobbies quiz
- Puzzle
- Brain teaser
- Tips
Holidays
Free media tool
Our pages
- AVZIO
- Short Stories
- Children short story
- The mother murre
The mother murre
One of the most striking cases of mother-love which has ever come under my observation, I saw in the summer of 1912 on the bird rookeries of the Three-Arch Rocks Reservation off the coast of Oregon.
We were making our slow way toward the top of the outer rock. Through rookery after rookery of birds, we climbed until we reached the edge of the summit. Scrambling over this edge, we found ourselves in the midst of a great colony of nesting murres - hundreds of them - covering this steep rocky part of the top.
As our heads appeared above the rim, many of the colony took wing and whirred over us out to sea, but most of them sat close, each bird upon its egg or over its chick, loath to leave, and so expose to us the hidden treasure.
The top of the rock was somewhat cone-shaped, and in order to reach the peak and the colonies on the west side we had to make our way through this rookery of the murres. The first step among them, and the whole colony was gone, with a rush of wings and feet that sent several of the top- shaped eggs rolling, and several of the young birds toppling over the cliff to the pounding waves and ledges far below.
We stopped, but the colony, almost to a bird, had bolted, leaving scores of eggs, and scores of downy young squealing and running together for shelter, like so many beetles under a lifted board.
But the birds had not every one bolted, for here sat two of the colony among the broken rocks. These two had not been frightened off. That both of them were greatly alarmed, any one could see from their open beaks, their rolling eyes, their tense bodies on tiptoe for flight. Yet here they sat, their wings out like props, or more like gripping hands, as if they were trying to hold themselves down to the rocks against their wild desire to fly.
And so they were, in truth, for under their extended wings I saw little black feet moving. Those two mother murres were not going to forsake their babies! No, not even for these approaching monsters, such as they had never before seen, clambering over their rocks.
What was different about these two? They had their young ones to protect. Yes, but so had every bird in the great colony its young one, or its egg, to protect, yet all the others had gone. Did these two have more mother-love than the others? And hence, more courage, more intelligence?
We took another step toward them, and one of the two birds sprang into the air, knocking her baby over and over with the stroke of her wing, and coming within an inch of hurling it across the rim to be battered on the ledges below. The other bird raised her wings to follow, then clapped them back over her baby. Fear is the most contagious thing in the world - and that flap of fear by the other bird thrilled her, too, but as she had withstood the stampede of the colony, so she caught herself again and held on.
She was now alone on the bare top of the rock, with ten thousand circling birds screaming to her in the air above, and with two men creeping up to her with a big black camera that clicked ominously. She let the multitude scream, and with threatening beak watched the two men come on. A motherless baby, spying her, ran down the rock squealing for his life. She spread a wing, put her bill behind him and shoved him quickly in out of sight with her own baby. The man with the camera saw the act, for I heard his machine click, and I heard him say something under his breath that you would hardly expect a mere man and a game-warden to say. But most men have a good deal of the mother in them - and the old bird had acted with such decision, such courage, such swift, compelling instinct, that any man, short of the wildest savage, would have felt his heart quicken at the sight.
"Just how compelling might that mother- instinct be?" I wondered. "Just how much would that mother-love stand?" I had dropped to my knees, and on all fours had crept up within about three feet of the bird. She still had chance for flight. Would she allow me to crawl any nearer? Slowly, very slowly, I stretched forward on my hands, like a measuring worm, until my body lay flat on the rocks, and my fingers were within three INCHES of her. But her wings were twitching, a wild light danced in her eyes, and her head turned toward the sea.
For a whole minute I did not stir. I was watching - and the wings again began to tighten about the babies, the wild light in the eyes died down, the long, sharp beak turned once more toward me.
Then slowly, very slowly, I raised my hand, touched her feathers with the tip of one finger - with two fingers - with my whole hand, while the loud camera click-clacked, click-clacked hardly four feet away!
It was a thrilling moment. I was not killing anything. I had no long-range rifle in my hands, coming up against the wind toward an unsuspecting creature hundreds of yards away. This was no wounded leopard charging me - no mother-bear defending with her giant might a captured cub. It was only a mother-bird, the size of a wild duck, with swift wings at her command, hiding under those wings her own and another's young, and her own boundless fear!
For the second time in my life I had taken captive with my bare hands a free wild bird. No, I had not taken her captive. She had made herself a captive - she had taken herself in the strong net of her mother-love.
And now her terror seemed quite gone. At the first touch of my hand I think she felt the love restraining it, and without fear or fret she let me reach under her and pull out the babies. But she reached after them with her bill to tuck them back out of sight, and when I did not let them go, she sidled toward me, quacking softly, a language that I perfectly understood, and was quick to respond to. I gave them back, fuzzy and black and white. She got them under her, stood up over them, pushed her wings down hard around them, her stout tail down hard behind them, and together with them pushed in an abandoned egg that was close at hand. Her own baby, some one else's baby, and some one else's forsaken egg! She could cover no more - she had not feathers enough. But she had heart enough - and into her mother's heart she had already tucked every motherless egg and nestling of the thousands of frightened birds, screaming and wheeling in the air high over her head.
story Information
Upload Date: 31/12/1969 |
Downloads: 1212 |
Other Stories
Other Stories5021 downloads
1221 downloads
7031 downloads
1386 downloads
2080 downloads
3212 downloads