Kassie: Patron Saint of Wildlife
Posted by
Kassandra
Posted on: 07/21/08
Kassie: Patron Saint of Wildlife
Tiger is a complete bastard. Tiger, just like his name implies, is a hunter.
Unlike his chubby partner-in-crime Socks aka Soooooockies! aka Fatty McFatterson, Tiger is sleek, powerful, and did I mention he enjoys hunting?Since I have been home for almost 4 weeks now Tiger has brought home various mice, baby birds, whatever animals he can catch. Most of the time they are brought home alive as playthings and then he calls out to Socks to gloat, like the bastard he is. Socks will sniff at it and perhaps play with it too. Some of the time Tiger will actually end up eating the mice or birds (much to my dismay, especially when I end up finding severed heads like a grotesque mafia hit job) and this of course royally pisses off our entire family. Even though I love cats and I realize it is in their nature to hunt, I refuse to sit by and let a poor innocent baby creature get hurt if I can do anything about it.
Last week Tiger caught, of all things, a hummingbird! How he was able to catch one I have no idea. But luckily when I heard his weird call to Socks I was able to thwap Tiger and snatch up the bird before he could get hurt. The bird (and Tiger) was stunned but unhurt. I put him in a tree and Chrissy and I watched him for a while unsure of what else to do. He flew away soon after. I was much relieved.
Today Tiger brought home a baby robin. I thought he died, which made my stomach churn, but it ended up he was playing possum. I thwaped Tiger again and we put the baby into a small box with some paper towels. He shook so hard at first and kept opening his mouth for food it completely broke my heart. He had almost all of his pin feathers and looked fat and healthy, so I knew he either got pushed out of the nest accidently or tried to fly too soon. Either way, he was so close to young adulthood that I wanted to do something to keep him alive until he could fly on his own.
Chrissy and I took him to the Vet (since we didn't know what else to do) but they were closed for their lunch hour perhaps fortuitously. We came home and I googled "save baby Robin" to see if maybe I could get some more information. I read in a few places the best thing to do is to find the nest and return the baby since they have a a much better chance of survival than with human handlers. Also, I learned that birds have a very poor sense of smell so it is okay to pick them up with your hands and return them, the mother will still feed them.
So 'round the neighborhood we went looking in trees, listening for baby birds, and asking neighbors if they might have seen robin nests. No luck. We looked for almost an hour. Nothing.
Finally, I happened to notice a big momma Robin with worms sticking out of her mouth. AHA! So I followed her around and kept chirping to the baby, who was now chirping back and looked much less afraid of me, and went on a wild uhhhh...robin chase. Then I saw Tiger poke his head out and the Robin flew away. I sighed in frustration and Chrissy caught Tiger to throw him INSIDE.
I peeked in the box again and noticed that the baby looked much more lively. I also noticed a huge poop. He grew more and more antsy and kept staring at me with those big FEED ME eyes. I sighed again and kept looking.
I started walking down another street and noticed a Robin perched on top of a house. I walked over to it and noticed her getting more and more upset with me as I approached the area. I also saw another bird fly out of a plum tree. I walked underneath the tree and EUREKA I found the nest!!!
I trotted back over to our house and hurriedly told Chrissy the great news. The baby must have sensed my excitement because he started chirping much more loudly. We walked over with a ladder and I climbed up the tree (Momma Robin was not pleased). There were 2 other babies in there and I made room for the 3rd one. They all snuggled together.
I did all I could. I just hope all the little ones make it. They were so well grown it looks like they will probably leave the nest in another week.
Another random fact I noticed looking up robins online: the parents go back and forth to the nest close to 400 times a day. DAMN. What amazing little birds.
/FIN
Kassandra
is loving her little adventures.
9
share
subscribe
contact
subscribe
RSS
Leave a Comment