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| Still alive |
Yesterday I wished that I was Jesus. If I had been Jesus I would have breathed life into the little bird that I found thrashing about pathetically in the street after I had just delivered two coronavirus masks to Ronny and Margaret on Gisborne Road.
I went into our house and found a brown paper bag. Obligingly, the distressed bird popped into the bag and I gently carried her home to our back garden. What could I do? After all, I was not wearing long flowing white robes with a halo hovering a few inches above my head.
The little bird was still moving, apparently dazed. Her stubby beak looked injured to me. There seemed to be a little blood. I sprinkled some water on the grass beside her and put a bucket over her - believing that a few minutes in darkness might reduce her stress.
Optimistically, I imagined that when I lifted the bucket she would simply fly away - no longer stunned. But as feared, the opposite was true. Half an hour after finding her on the tarmacadam she was dead.
I carried her lifeless body to our garden table and examined her. What kind of bird was she? I opened her wings and noted the wonderful arrangement of her feathers. She was a marvel of evolution - like all creatures.
As I have said before, I love birds but I am pretty hopeless at identifying them. I took a few photos of the corpse - hoping to use Google imagery to identify her later on. And as evening fell, I buried her at the top of the garden - making the hole quite deep in case a passing fox or cat fancied a tasty late night snack. Like a crazy fool, I placed a piece of chalk from Flamborough on her grave and a couple of daisies but I did not sing "Rock of Ages" or "Abide With Me". It was most assuredly a non-religious ceremony. Sorry Jesus.
My WWW detective work suggests that she may have been a female chaffinch - far less flamboyant than the male of the species. The stubby beak seemed to give her identity away. However, I freely admit that I may be wrong and will be happy to be corrected. Sparrow beaks are definitely not like that.
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| Ten minutes after death |
Well, in this case, your eye was on the Chaffinch. If not the sparrow. Good enough.
ReplyDeleteYou lost me there Ms Moon.
DeleteI liked it, ms moon!
Delete"His Eye is on the Sparrow" is a well-known gospel song, YP. (Well-known in the states, at least!)
DeleteThanks Steve. I have never heard of it.
DeleteWell, she was a pretty bird and you did her right by how you treated her! You earned yourself a few Jesus points! :o)
ReplyDeleteSomehow I can't see myself sitting on a fluffy cloud, strumming a harp forever.
DeleteLOL ... wasn't even going that far, YP. Just that you did a super good deed!
DeletePoor creature. Thank you for showing her care in her last moments.
ReplyDeleteThey are all precious beings.
DeleteYou did the right thing. Many birds fly into something and suffer temporary concussion. Most fly away.
ReplyDeleteComing from an experienced birder, I appreciate that comment Red.
DeletePoor bird. Her beak looks like it must have been painful. I hate seeing animals suffer but also cannot bring myself to end their suffering. I'm glad she didn't suffer long and that you buried her.
ReplyDeleteI care about all creatures - just like St Francis of Assisi!
DeleteYou have given me a sad. Dammit, YP.
ReplyDeleteYou are a softie too Jenny!
DeleteJudging by the state of the beak she was, most likely, a goner anyway. The villain in your piece is the bucket. That bucket you put over her (?) will haunt me enough for the next forty eight hours to pen a short story in the vein of devilish Roald Dahl.
ReplyDeleteOn the plus side, she died when in caring hands. Which is more than some humans enjoy when heading for exit.
U
About the bucket - that response was lodged somewhere in the back of my mind and keen birder/ornithologist Red from Alberta (see above) cconfirms that it was the right thing to do.
DeleteSad experience but you buried her with dignity. Something as a child I would do, unfortunately my little animal graveyard was marked by crosses but a very solemn place by the summer house.
ReplyDeleteIn some respects we should never lose the child inside of us.
DeleteWith the beak damaged, I wonder if she flew into a window. Sometimes the reflection looks like sky. It is qui the common and one reason why you should not put mirrors in the garden.
ReplyDeleteBrionyX
She was in the road so I think she may have hit a car window.
DeleteThink of all those eternal years strumming your harp, drinking 'nice' cups of tea, singing hymns on cloud nine?
ReplyDeleteI thought it was a sparrow. Heard my first Cuckoo on Sunday.
That would be so boring Northsider - especially if you were on the next cloud talking about propagation for ever and ever. Amen.
DeleteAm I boring? Don't answer that.
DeleteZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
DeleteWhat would the farm labourers in the village you came from have thought of you?
ReplyDeleteThey'd have thought I was a nancy boy - why, I even write poetry!
DeletePoor thing. I hate it when that happens.
ReplyDeleteWe have quite large windows on all sides of our house and birds will often fly into them thinking that they can go straight through. We now hane coloured glass suncatchers hanging on the glass to try to deter them.
One year we had a pair of beautiful little goldcrests nesting in our garden for the first time ever. Soon after having built the nest we found the tiny body of one of them on the step beneath our dining room window. It had obviously flown into the glass and died. We were delighted though the following year to see that we had another pair building a nest but, sadly, exactly the same thing happened, despite the coloured glass.
We have not seen any for a while now. They have marked us out as murderers!!
Your weapon of choice - not the knife or the gun - but the window!
DeleteA quiet, dark place is often the stress relief an animal needs to recover. Unfortunately your wee girl must have been to gravely injured.
ReplyDeleteThe burial is a nice touch
It makes one feel sad.
DeletePoor little thing! Hopefully, she does not have a nest full of little ones somewhere, waiting for her to bring them food and warm them at night.
ReplyDeleteThe bucket was a good idea. It would freak many other animals out (humans included), to be covered in darkness, but for birds, it reduces their stress and fear, making them feel much safer hidden from the eyes of potential predators.
I might be wrong but I had the feeling that she was a young one - possibly born last year. There was a sharp healthiness about her general condition.
DeleteHow strange YP, yesterday morning I found a small bird lying on the terrace outside one of the windows. At first I wasn't sure it was dead, or had flown into the window and was merely stunned. I put it in a shady, quiet place, safe from passing cats, hoping it would recover. After checking on it from time to time, a couple of hours later I realised it was dead. It's so upsetting not to be able to revive such a tiny little creature. I just hope that it wasn't feeding a nest full of babies.
ReplyDeleteI later found some feathers sticking to the glass, and realised it must have flown into the window.
What a strange co-incidence!
DeleteThere's only one thing for it CG - you will have to arrange to have all the glass removed from your windows. Put in bubble wrap instead!
That's a shame. I wonder if it was struck by (or flew into) a car? Sometimes stunned birds DO miraculously revive themselves, but if there's visible blood that's a very bad sign.
ReplyDeleteI guessed that my hope was in vain.
DeleteI've seen a stunned bird recover. A fairly large woodpecker that attacked itself in our window. He was hours recovering to fly away. In my experience with wounded birds (small), if they cannot recover, they seem to will themselves to death quickly. Or maybe that's too wishful thinking. Thank you for taking such good care of her, and burying her deep.
ReplyDeleteHow splendid that your woodpecker recovered Joanne.
DeleteThis is so sad,it looks a plain bird but is lovely in its own creation with its grey and cream upper and lower underparts.
ReplyDeleteYes. In its on way it was a magical creation.
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