A lesson learned, out in the backyard

Even a seemingly empty backyard can be the setting for high drama.

While walking our pit bull/lab Martha earlier this week, I came upon what appeared to be a dead baby bird on the lawn. Eyes closed. Motionless. Pulling the extremely curious Martha to one side with my left hand, I grabbed a twig in my right, and gently touched the small bundle of feathers, to see if my original impression was correct.

Fortunately, it was not. The “dead” bird immediately sprang to life with much squawking and flapping of wings. But it could not fly, and flopped helplessly on the grass. A female cardinal chattered at me from a nearby branch. leading me to assume that the little one had stumbled out of the nest and the parents, or at least the mother, were trying to protect it from busybodies like me.

The urge to intervene, to help out, is very strong in such situations, but I suspected that a hands-off policy was best. Bringing Martha back into the house, I called the state wildlife agency to ask what I should do. The guy on the other end of the line sounded like he had heard this question a thousand times before.

“Leave it where it is and the parents will move it into high grass or some other cover and in a week or two it will be able to fly.” he said.

“But what if a cat finds it in the meantime?” I asked.

The state guy hesitated, and before he could respond, I answered my own question.

“That’s the way of the world,” I said.

I went back out a short time later and the chick was nowhere in sight. Neither was the adult cardinal. There was no sign of a struggle, no feathers scattered on the ground, as you might expect if a cat had turned the bird into a snack. That, I thought, was a good sign.

The spot where I had found the chick was only about six inches from a very large, full, lush patch of periwinkle that grew from a few cuttings that I planted many years ago. So perhaps the baby hopped into the vegetation for cover, or was pushed there by its mother.

Martha still gives the bird's "landing zone" a thorough sniff whenever we walk by. Sometimes I wonder if, with a dog's almost magical sense of smell, she knows what became of the chick. If so, she isn't talking, so the mystery lingers.
 
I’ll never be sure where the little guy (or gal) ended up. So it is with much in life. We can’t always bend events to our will. Sometimes, all we can do is walk away, say a prayer (to St. Francis of Assisi, in this case) and hope for the best.