Bent but not Broken
Yesterday, I was running through my to do list as if the house was on fire and it sure felt like it was at the time. I heard a knock on the window and looked outside to see a Northern Mockingbird cawing from the edge of the terrace and one on the ground upside down on the floor. I walked out to the terrace to help him and he was flopping as if he had broken his neck and couldn’t get his bearings. His claws were curled and his wing seemed broken. I turned him over so he wouldn’t struggle and began stroking his stomach and head and told him to calm down. His friend flew away.
He looked like the same bird who had chased me out of City Park the other day when I had obviously gone too close to a nest. That bird had looped around to peck at my head four times as Loca and I swiftly left out of the park’s front entrance. I told the one struggling now, “You never know who your friends are,” as I stroked him a little more. I brought out Loca’s saucer of water and tried to sprinkle a little on him to liven him up.
I went back to work and kept going back out to check on him and each time he had improved a little bit more. His wings weren’t all out of whack, his claws were no longer furled, his head wasn’t bobbing off its stem. He seemed to be recovering from the shock of the direct hit to the glass door, but he still couldn’t fly much above a little jump and I didn’t want to put him in the garden where he would fall prey to the cats.
A few hours later, he was able to take flight from the terrace and join his friends in the sky. I felt better that it was not another dead bird on account of my oversized windows up here. More importantly, I was glad to have seen this little creature fighting for his life and to have made it. It gave a certain hope that the larger things looming inside my office were surmountable.
May 29th, 2011 at 1:19 pm
That’s a phenomenal feeling! I went through the same experience with my baby Soweta owl from several years back. He bashed into our French doors thinking he could fly through to something he was focused on in our neighbors yard through the picture window beyond that door! I too hate to be the source of nature’s problems.