The Stolen Finch

The leaves were rustling, the birds chirping, the sun's heat cracking on rocks on the ground which was as dry as sandpaper.

The cicadas chirped as loud as jet planes.

The highway cars humming in the distance, the stream flowing like the wind, quickly drying up in the summer heat. 

The insects quickly dashed away from the humans who were talking like buzzing bees as they trailed along the old track.

But they were being watched.

I flapped my tiny wings darting through the leaves with my other finch friends right behind me.

We were like miniature hawks dashing through the gum tree leaves.

Then I hopped onto a leaf and took a small green caterpillar with me to feed my nest of small featherless chicks squeaking like alarms. 

I got closer to the nest when I saw a dark, huge, plane-like shadow that flew over my round bird head.

They were back.

Huge buzzards that have come here to take our fledglings.

We couldn’t do anything. They were too strong. We had to take off like darts.

They had no problem breaking into our grass-woven nests and taking our fledglings like a bag of chips.

A bomb hit my stomach seeing them come, but one day we'll fight back.

One day.