July 1st, 2008

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Have you heard that the road to ruin is paved with good intentions? Well today I'll bring you two feathery tales diverging in a yellow wood. The one less traveled is to worry and wonder about a filthy pest; the more common route is to try to bring aid to the "awww cute" beautiful thing. Never may anyone say theWAREHOUSE doesn't bring you moralistic tales of social justice. I don't think anyone actually says that, but that's beside the point.

The point being that sometimes helping the pest is the right thing to do, and sometimes helping the cute thing is the wrong thing to do.

"Carl, what in Big Bird's name are you talking about?"

 

 

The crows in the trees were making a terrible racket. But I just thought that's what crows do. I'm standing on the back deck trying to grill - unintentionally ironically? - chicken. They're cawing up a storm. As the grill heats I wander around a bit and what to my wondering eyes appears? Down next to the side of my deck is a wounded crow.

"Uh, Aubrey?"

 

 

It wasn't moving at all, save for the occasional slight movement of its head or a rare blink. Obviously if it could've, it would've flown the coop as soon as I startled it.

Traditionally it's pretty standard to hate the heck out of crows. Not long earlier the murder of crows killed a hawk whose corpse landed on our property. The carrion feeders are always hanging out in roads, making people slow and swerve as they lazily peck at roadkill. Fair enough, though, they do help out by removing roadkill...I guess.

Still, it was a gigantic and still living bird. Aubrey wanted to try to help it and I agreed. I got a box, she got a towel and a pair of gloves.

 

 

The whole time, the other crows in the trees were making such a horrible cacophony. The grilling chicken was smelling pretty good about now.

After this whole affair the remaining crows would stay in the trees for about two weeks, stirring up an awful racket any time we would go outside. It's like they waited there watching for us and screamed out "hey, flightless pink things, where the hell did you take our drinking buddy?" We had no idea how loyal they were to members of their murder.

 

 

Anyway. Aubrey picked up the bird - I remember him being a lot larger than in the above picture - and put him in the box. Still no obvious injuries. My guess is that it just flew into the house somewhere. There was a spent peanut casing (heh) on our deck - and just recently I found another in a gutter on the roof. Maybe the crows were carrying peanuts around.

 

 

The sharp pecker on that thing does look pretty intimidating.

Aubrey called around to a few vet places and found one that took in "wildlife" so away we went.

 

 

I did turn off the grill so...there's that.

Fortunately this place was only about 10 minutes up the road from us. It really would've sucked to have to drive across the city or out into the country more. But I'm sure we would've done it.

The wounded bird was pretty well behaved. It hardly moved at all.

 

 

The story ends here. We dropped it off at the Eastridge Animal Hospital after filling out a form saying where we found it and whatnot. They took the crowbox and made no particular mention of calling us back.

I'm sure Russell Crow is doing just fine. They probably put an adorable little cast and sling around one wing. Maybe a tiny pair of crutches. Actually the place does have a really neat little bird sanctuary area with ducks, parrots, and other birds recovering or under observation. Very impressive.

As I mentioned, the rest of the murder hung around our property for about two weeks, harassing us about their friend any time we stepped out the door. Well, sorry guys but we just saved your pal's life. You're welcome. So the next time you say to yourself "I found a hurt crow" or any kind of adult bird, gently bundle it up in a box - wear gloves! - and find your local wildlife-accepting animal shelter or vet.

That's the end of this story. Keep reading for the "wrong" decision. Don't worry it's not sad, we just screwed up. And it's short, too!

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Shortly after the wounded crow incident, Aubrey rushes over to me saying she found a baby bird. "Wanna see?" Heck yeah!

This tiny little sparrow flipperdoodle was quite agitated and apparently totally alone. We wondered if he got pushed out of the nest before he was ready, or if he tried to fly and failed, or if something destroyed the nest, or if he had deadbeat parents or the gubbermint came and repossessed their home for unpaid back taxes.

Unlike the crow, this little dude was a mover. After much coaxing we got the sparrow fledgling into a bucket with some grass and a little lid full of water. Then we progressed to check the intarwebs to find out what on earth we should do to help out or tiny bird buddy.

 

 

After some harried minutes of searching around as best we could it turns out we screwed up. If you've found a baby bird that's not in any obvious state of injury and is just hopping around on the grass, chances are good that the mother is or was nearby teaching it to feed and hunt. WHOOPS. You're not supposed to touch them or pick 'em up. And really don't even go near them because you'll scare the mother off and who knows what would happen to a baby sparrow when the mom's not around? Cats and storm drains and all sorts of adorable disasters that would make a great Disney cartoon twenty years ago.

Thankfully, contrary to popular belief, we discovered that "the scent of human" does not make the mother reject the infant. Which is good because I stink. The whole incident is just a little stressful and it does separate the mother from the little bitty birdy.

 

 

So Aubrey gingerly poured the little fellow back out on the yard where she found him. After a short minute or three the mom returned from wherever she had fled to. They booked it out of there, to live hoppily ever after.

Poor little baby sparrow. Whoops. Sorry dude. Sorry bird mom.

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So the moral of the stories is this. Sometimes when you think you're helping you're really doing more harm than good. Sometimes, however, the things you might not want to help actually need your assistance the most.

Yeesh, that was sappy. Let's get back to blowing up stuff and wrapping things in bacon.

Oh, and I did finish grilling the chicken. Thanks for asking. It was great.

The End
 

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