(This is the third and final article about finding a mockingbird's nest and watching the fledglings in it. The first article ran in the Oct. 15 issue and the second ran in the Nov. 12 issue.)

For nine days in August I witnessed the countless comings and goings of two adult mockingbirds feeding three insatiably hungry nestlings. The only way to have had a better view was to have been in the nest. This is the kind of juice for which the birder in me lives. I didn't just watch the mockers, I came to know them. Nothing about the experience was vicarious, there was no "virtual reality," and I did not pay a professional naturalist to take me to see them.

There is an unutterable excitement about looking into the pale yellow eyes of a wild bird that seems like it is looking at you and may be thinking about your presence. You get to know a bird best when you look into its eyes and it looks back. Twice I watched an adult leaving the nest looking straight ahead seemingly at me. Were they watching me? I was fifteen yards away, a constant presence at an open window with a telescope. Did they think I was a threat? I don't think so because the next day I was ignored. On a number of occasions I saw what I thought was a shortened visit as the adult turned its head, exited stage left on a branch, twitched its tail from side to side with an intent look on its face and flew. I later learned that the movement was a signal to ward off potential predatory birds.

Their flight fascinated me. Occasionally one would suddenly come over the top of our roof, appearing in a flash of brown and white. It would fly in a slightly uneven arch to the nest below, pulling back its wings, fanning the tail, it's white becoming more prominent, to halt its flight and landing with outstretched feet. So lovely. Once one flew very close to my window, to the lip of the roof above. I felt privileged.

By immersing myself in their small world I saw what I only could have guessed about previously. I came away with questions especially about the frequent trips where the adults seemingly did not feed the nestlings. Were they trying to get them out of the nest onto branches or perhaps to fly? I came to know where they hunted, could accurately estimate how long it would take for them to get to the nest, and what they would do there and about how long they would stay. While I couldn't actually tell the mother from the father by looking at them, there obviously was a difference in their approach to the nest. One was cautious, stopping at rooftops or signs or other tree branches before making a delivery. Mom. The other threw caution to the winds making a mad dash for the nest. Dad.

One afternoon with the sun's glare too strong, I watched only sporadically. As I was helping my wife take groceries out of the car which was in fact closer to the nest than our window she said, " Do you see the bird"? She was looking in back of me where there was a metal sign. There was probably a mocker on it. Calm, gray, placid looking, it looked a bit lean from its exertions. Elegance on metal. I know you, I thought. The bird seems to be looking directly at us. Do you know me? The bird flew to the sign across the street. "That's the mother," I said to my wife. "She'll either go to the tree and then to the nest or she'll go straight to the nest." The nest it is, and she pulled up slightly as she approached the branch, landing feet up in the partially upright graceful position. Poetry in motion.

Minutes later an adult came out of the tree making an arch almost to the grass and went up and over a parked car. Are you going to the grass for more insects? It was then that I understood that I was starting to feel close to the mockingbirds. When they skipped town I realized that I had seen the metamorphoses in the chick's appearance day by day right before my eyes. To watch them was to witness a living work of art grow. Beauty is in whatever form it takes, for what is a world without it?

I know where they now live. It's up the street and around the corner in a tall sculpted hedge that straddles a fence. Stylish digs their new condo is. It's in a semi-private, quiet section, not like the basic pine tree unit on a curve in the street near where the road was being torn up and repaved, with at times unmerciful noise. No place to raise fledglings.

But I see and hear them frequently flying and perhaps hunting in the trees by our house. They just don't live here anymore. The other day I saw an adult come out onto the limb of a branch on the side of our house. The tentative steps of a fledgling whose tail is not as long as that of the adult and whose breast is still fuzzy soon followed it. They stayed a while but shortly flew. I know you guys; you'll be back.