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I witnessed a rather amusing spectacle the other day: A bird was
picking a fight with my cat. As I watched, this bird would swoop
down and bean my cat on the head with her beak. My dense cat,
however, just stood there and took it. I walked over to her, hoping
to save her from the dive-bombing bird, when I saw why the bird was
doing that and why my cat was just standing there.
Apparently, my cat had discovered a meal on the ground that
happened to be one of the bird's offspring. Obviously, the mama bird
didn't feel inclined to give up her baby for my cat's dining
pleasure.
So instead of saving my cat, I shooed her away and stood there
looking at the baby bird while mama flitted around chirping
uselessly. I looked up at the nest, high in a tree, and decided I
was too young to die, so the baby bird would not be going back up
there via this human elevator.
Instead, I made a small nest in a box, put the baby bird in it
and placed it high enough that my cat would not be able to feast on
it. My hope was that the mama bird would see the baby in the nest
and start feeding it again.
As I was doing all of this, my cat discovered another baby bird
that she had decided would make an excellent hors d'oeuvre. Once
again, I shooed her away and placed the second one in the box with
its unfortunate sibling.
I watched that box and the mama bird from a distance for two
hours before I decided that the mama bird was too dumb to raise
children. First, she let her babies fall out of the nest, and then
she couldn't even locate them. The babies were peeping a blue
streak, but that mama bird couldn't seem to find them. Well, heck.
The babies were hungry and had to be fed. It was the weekend, so
there was no veterinarian to call, so I called my son, who is a
biologist and has studied animals in college. I told him that I
would like to feed these birds as naturally as I could until I could
get them to someone who knew what they were doing. How do I do that?
"Well, mom," he said, "unless you plan to get a worm out of the
ground, chew it up, swallow it and then puke it into their little
mouths, you can't do it the way their mama would."
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I looked at those tiny, ugly critters with no feathers, huge eyes
and a face that could stop a train. There had better be another way
or they were doomed.
"OK," I said to my son, "Say, I didn't want to do that,
hypothetically, of course. What do baby birds eat?"
"They eat the same thing their mamas eat, only mashed up."
"You've been a huge help, thank you very little."
Just then the mama bird came to the bird feeder hanging off my
house and started nibbling.
"Well, your appetite hasn't been affected much by losing two
children in one day, has it?"
Stupid bird. But then I realized that she was eating birdseed,
not a worm. I can do birdseed!
A short time later, I was looking first at the birdseed, then at
the scrawny little necks of those ugly baby birds and realized that
trying to get that seed down their tiny throats would be a little
like forcing a bowling ball through a garden hose. After some
experimentation with hammers, rolling pins and other hard objects, I
finally came upon my nut grinder. I ground up those seeds and nuts
with some raisins, mixed it up with a little water and made custom
birdie pabulum.
I found a small tweezers, and since the babies' beaks were
permanently open because they were so hungry, I merely dropped a
little of my birdie potion in there and crossed my fingers.
It turns out that baby birds, ugly as they are, must be pretty
resilient, because they managed to survive my concoction. It seems
they may have a chance after all.
[By LAURA SNYDER]
Laura Snyder is a nationally syndicated columnist,
author and speaker. You can reach her at
lsnyder@lauraonlife.com
or visit www.lauraonlife.com
for more info. |
