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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.
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.
[Text from file received from
Slim Randles]
If you find an injured
bird, you can always call or email the experts here at injuredbird@nycbirdalliance.org.
NYC birds tend to fly into glass windows, I’m told.
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