I came home tonight from a great three-miler with Amber, who was kind enough to slow down her normal running pace to run with me tonight, all filled with good energy and ready to get some things done since the boyfriend was going to be working until 1:00 a.m. However, Mother Nature had other plans for me. There on our newly constructed, beautiful rockery complete with fountain and pond was a bird. A bird that was very clearly in some seriously bad shape. Aw, hell. I thought briefly about ignoring her but once you see it, it becomes your problem. I couldn't just sit inside and eat my dinner knowing there was a living thing outside suffering and in pain and probably dying. Of course this happens all the time; circle of life and all that crap. Something is doing all those things right now but they aren't doing it in my backyard.
So after a quick bathroom trip I tried to find a place to take injured birds and luckily there is a clinic in Bellevue that will hold them for a wildlife rescue in Arlington to come get. When I picked this bird up and got a good luck at her I realized there was no rehabilitation possible but hoped she could at least be quickly euthanized. She was missing her right eye and the entire side of her sweet little birdy head was stripped of feathers and was bald and bloody. I couldn't just let her suffer so I put her in a shoebox with a towel and made the trip to Bellevue, made my donation to the wildlife center and went home trying to convince myself that being picked up by a big pink lady, stuffed into a shoebox, put into a car, driven on the freeway and then placed in a cage while you waited for your inevitable death was somehow less traumatic then dying in the dirt in our backyard. Not sure it really is any better but it is the decision that I can live with myself for making.
4 comments:
Haha, Michael's friends are strange.
DOn't you have 2 cats?
Ahhh, injured birds. H and I have TWICE, if I remember correctly, driven injured birds through rush hour traffic up to god know's where north of Seattle to a wildlife rescue place and made donations to have someone just put them out of their misery. I think one of H's cat sitting charges might have mauled one of them, so I suppose it was only fair that she took it in. Poor critters!
H would like me to add that she "thinks it's a hateful crow!!!" Apparently H and JB witnessed a crow raiding a nest of wee little birds and PECKING their eyes and heads while "their extended family squawked in terror. "
Ummm, that's just her verbatim report. I am now going to call for some trauma counseling for her.
I agree with Amber! Sheesh!
I, on the other hand, let nature takes its course. Maggie has caught a few birds and injured them, but I won't let her eat 'em.
So I very carefully pick them up (i.e. with a shovel), lay them gently on the other side of the fence (i.e. fling them in the ditch), and hope that an outdoor cat or raccoon gets 'em soon.
Sorry. I grew up on a farm.
Yay for those of you who take the time to drive them to be peacefully laid to rest.
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