Good humor makes all things possible.
-Charles Schultz-

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.
-Shakespeare-The Merchant of Venice-

Friday, March 23, 2012

The beat goes on




Yesterday there was a tremendous thud on my living room window.  I jumped up and ran to look.  The first thing I saw was a wad of feathers stuck to the glass and, looking down, a large bird gasping on the grass outside.  Chase slept through the impact but Lottie, who was was outside, is not above gnawing on anything that looks like a bird and tastes like a bird, alive or dead, so I went outside to shoo her away from his body while I debated what to do next.

She heard the thud too and was right there with a knife and fork, but he was still breathing,  so I grabbed her and put her in the house.  I hoped he'd be one of those silly birds that spank the window, sit down for a few minutes collecting their thoughts and then fly away fit as a fiddle.  Some are too injured to fly and suffer for a while before the angels come.  I hate that, but my skills aren't equal to bird rehabilitation, or even convalescent care.  All I could do was prevent Lottie, who is a little closer to her hunting ancestry than Chase the doddering pacifist, from chewing on Mr Bird while he counted out the minutes.

He died by the time I got back out there.  He was so beautiful:  stunning black-and-white houndstooth vest, tail feathers shiny black on top and burnt orange velvet below, and a soft brown face with a long strong beak.  I moved him a little, just in case, but he was dead as a doornail.  I hoped he didn't have a family of hungry babies waiting in the nest for their dinner of grubs.  Later Google identified him  as a Western Flicker, who behaves like a woodpecker.  He (or one of his teammates) had lived in my neighborhood for several years, making woodpecker noises.

Now he's gone.  I  wrapped him in a plastic bag and put him in the trash can so Lottie, or any other creature, wouldn't ravage his carcass, and I wouldn't have to dispose of him in a week when he had grown significantly less lovely.

Poor birdie.







In other news, Chase heard about a new fad, like Planking or Draping, called Cat Breading,  and he pestered me until I fixed his costume and snapped a picture.  He is especially pleased that he's the same color as Sara Lee Whole Wheat Lite bread.  Perhaps all this talk about dead birds was kind of a downer; or else he already forgot.  Probably the latter.

2 comments:

  1. We have the common flicker here, and they're beautiful birds as well. We also have birds consistently hitting the sliding glass doors to the patio, even though we put all kinds of annoying stickers on them. Apparently the stickers are better at annoying us than the birds!

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  2. Oh, poor bird! We occasionally hear a THUD at our back window--usually the birds are stunned and fly away. Once an owl lay dazed on our patio for half a day before flying off.

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