The Fledgling

After dropping Noah off at school I saw a baby bird on our brick path. I put away Shao's bike and then looked at the bird again. It was a sparrow. It didn't look too good. I had seen it before in the bushes with the mother nearby. My first instinct is to leave nature alone. It will run it's course. But as I went inside I thought, "Maybe this means something that this bird cam across my path and maybe I was meant to do something. After all, it was pretty defenseless like that on the ground. If I put it in makeshift nest and put in on our porch, then it's mother could find him and it would be safe from cats, or from me accidentally stepping on it or something.
I cut up a box that had some packing material that looked just like a next would.
I shoveled the bird in with cardboard not touching it because I had heard that if you touch it the mother will reject it. Then I made a little house for it on the porch. I checked on him every once in a while and he looked like he was happy to be out of the rain and had stopped shivering as much. He tucked his little head into his breast and went to sleep.

I then looked at a bunch of stuff on the internet and found out that this sparrow was not a baby but a fledgling and that it had been doing what it should have done hopping along the ground. But it had been shivering. I decided I should move it from the porch to a bush nearby because the mother might not be able to find it.

My neighbor saw my makeshift nest in the bush and called the Audubon society, which said she should do nothing and we talked and I left the bird  there to sleep. The more I read the more I realized that perhaps I was hindering the development of this bird by "rescuing" it. I decided I might want to put it back where I found it. There were sparrows flying around which I thought might be the mother.

I moved the box to the ground under the bush. I decided I would keep watching for the mother, and that if tonight, it was still there in the box, I would move it up to the porch away from cats and dogs.

I saw a couple sparrows who looked like they were looking for it, and again I thought, "maybe this fledgling needs to develop it's legs instead of being so lazy in the little box I made it. So I dumped it out of the box gently. It looked at me with eyes that looked like Dai Dai's when he is being tipped off balance by surprise.

Everytime I checked on it Dai Dai would ask where I had gone and I tried to explain. Idecided I had to watch after my own little fledgling. So I watched the bird from the house.

I noticed all sorts of birds passing and flying around. Our neighbor has a great vegetable garden and  I think this had incerased the number of birds that hang out on my porch and in the bushes. There were colorful red ones that looked like robins. There were orange breasted ones that looked like Orioles, and then two jet black ones that looked sleek with yellow thin beaks flew by too.

"Look at how beautiful all these birds are." I thought.

The two jet black birds and an orange breasted one suddenly seemed to take interest in the fledgling as I watched from a window three stories up. And then, the jet black one made a clear decision after watching for some time. It leaped forward and stabbed the fledgling several times before the orange breasted bird attacked in and chased them both off.

I ran downstairs to find the fledgling heavy with dying, it's life seeping out of it's defenseless undeveloped body. I tried to see if I could scoop it up with cardboard again and it made some last motions of flapping.

"Fuck!" I yelled looking around at the birds coming and going with a new perspective. I felt like I had witnessed a street fight. A murder. Indeed it was strange that the orange breasted bird did seem to try and step in on behalf of the sparrow fledgling despite it not being of the same species.

The murderer bird... I suppose that was about competition of some sort. It certainly wasn't about food.

A neighbor's friend came by and tried to sell me his services for gardening and house painting and I chatted in a friendly way suitable for society while the fledgling slowly died.

I checked after the man left and it was now heavy with death. Lifeless. I went back inside and Dai Dai asked where I had gone. I tried to explain. I got out three sticks of incense and found the lighter. Obviously this would do nothing. But I did it anyway.

I lit the incense and watched it burn. The ground was wet but I wanted to make sure there was no chance of a fire, and standing there made it feel like a service.

I rang the bell to tell my neighbor, the woman, because I wanted to talk about it. But she wasn't home.

I stood and watch and smelled the incense burn with Dai Dai who didn't much care about the dead bird, but was fascinated by the living ones.

My neighbor, her husband came home and I explained what I had saw. We chatted over the birds dead body and talked of wild and nature and various experiences he had had in Namibia, and about cats.

My neighbor, the woman, came back home and I explained and she almost cried. Now it really did feel like a funeral. I suppose it was. But I didn't bury the bird because I didn't know how dead it was. I suppose I will bury him later.

So much for that.

I followed all the rules I saw online.

Fuck the rules. If I had kept that bird on the porch it would have lived an extra day or so, at least another hour. In another week it would know how to fly. Maybe I should have just raised it despite it's being illegal. Then if it died, well at least I would have somehow gotten something out of it in some sort of science experiment sort of way. At least it would have died quietly on the porch instead of being murdered in the bush. Who was that bird? Was it someone trying to contact me from the realm beyond? Why was it in my path? Coincidence?

Well, it's dead now.