The Bird is the Word

A couple of days ago, my daughter was taking her son to school when she happened to come across a baby robin fluttering about in the hallway inside the school. Being her mother's daughter, she scooped up the baby bird -- much to the relief of the school staff -- and brought the little one home to me.

When I lived in New Jersey, I rescued injured and abandoned wildlife, working with a local rehabilitation /wildlife refuge place out in Tabernacle, NJ. I've had my share of moles, skunks, baby rabbits and squirrels, but mostly I had birds.

Taking care of baby birds is a huge undertaking, you have to mix special food for them which consists of paste-type dog food, applesauce, baby cereal, hard boiled eggs, and bone meal. This you feed to the baby bird every two hours or so with tweezers or a toothpick with the sharp end cut off and smashed flat to make a little spoon type deal. The babies tend to crap everywhere, especially the mockingbirds, who poop huge jelly-bean sized turds. When they start to learn how to fly, the like to perch on your shoulder or your head and generally poop there as well.

This little baby has all its feathers, but seems off kilter in her balance and cannot fly yet. I have to lock myself in the bathroom to feed her, since one of my dogs is a bird dog and would kill it and eat it if given the opportunity. She refuses to eat the dog-food mix so I've been making her scrambled eggs, which she loves. My grandsons have decided to name her "Eggy".

I had one other bird that I had difficulty in rehabilitating years ago, a female cardinal, who would not fly save short distances but preferred running on the ground. I ended up keeping her (I named her Jeanette, after Jeanette MacDonald) and she happily lived with me for 16 years, believe it or not.

This morning I took little Eggy into the bathroom where my grandsons (age 4 and 9) joined me to watch, fed her her scrambled eggs and gave her water from a syringe. She tried desperately to fly all the while voicing her complaints quite loudly with an irritated expression on her face. She then flapped her wings and climbed up my arm and settled on my shoulder, nipping at my hair. The boys got a big kick out of it.

Then the four-year old taps me and says, "Gramma, Eggy pooped on your shirt!" To which he fell on the floor in hysterics. The 9 year old was completely grossed out and was making faces, which made me laugh.

Hopefully little Eggy's flying skills will improve in the next week or so and I can release her. Till then, I think the whole situation kind of illustrates how life really works. You go out in the world and contribute what you can to the benefit of mankind or nature-- and sometimes, in spite of your well-intentioned efforts, you get crapped on.