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Slim Randles'
Home Country
Aging, life realities and baby birds
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[JULY
29, 2006]
When we first noticed the baby sparrow here at the house,
it saddened us all. He had fallen from his nest and was slowly
walking around the front yard under the tree while his mother and
father had an absolute fit. |
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We knew we were looking at a dead baby bird, as it was only a
question of who does it, where it is done and how long before it
happens. Years of experience in these kinds of things have taught us
the finality of a baby bird falling out of a tree. Would the end
come from a cat, or from a raccoon wandering up from Lewis Creek, or
a snake? One of the problems with being a baby bird is that almost
everything with teeth wants to eat you, and if you can't fly,
there's not much you can do about it. We learned that picking the
baby up and putting him back in the nest wouldn't work, so we were
forced to just watch his timid movements around the yard and whisper
to him, "I'm sorry, pal." You might think that the older we get,
the tougher our shells become to these little natural tragedies, but
it doesn't seem to work that way. Maybe it's because we've now had
children of our own, and grandchildren, too. Maybe that's why it
actually hurts more to see a helpless baby bird today than when we
were 11 and riding our bikes on the river trails. Back then we were
bulletproof, flexible and immortal. But we learned things over the
years. We saw people our age die. We saw younger people die. We
accumulated our own little collection of personal tragedies.
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Then the baby found the drain spout. Yep, that little rascal
hopped into the drain spout coming off the roof and had sense enough
to stay in there, coming to the edge of his "cave" only for meals
from his anxious mother. A week later, I thought I recognized him
sitting on a tree branch, looking smug. He wasn't in the drain
spout, and I didn't see any feathers around on the ground.
We live in an age of small miracles.
[Slim Randles]
Brought to you by the novel
"Sun Dog Days,"
available at
www.slimrandles.com.
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