It didn't seem like a strange situation at the time. We simply worked together. And all the while, the little bird got stronger and grew a nice crop of baby feathers. The whole focus was to keep him safe and give him a chance to rejoin his family. And I got great pleasure from watching him get closer and closer to that goal.
Baby birds grow surprisingly fast.
And it wasn't too long before little bird was beginning to flap his wings and moving around pretty well. Occasionally he flapped his way to the rim of the pail and exercised his wings vigorously before either hopping or falling back into the soft nest at the bottom. Then the day came that I had dreaded. The mother and father robins were squawking furiously. I found the pail empty.