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January 25, 2005

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This poor little bird seemed to have gotten a little confused one evening. There are many birds that hang out in the bushes in the evening, right outside my front door. Upon walking up to the door or going outside, they get startled and try to fly away. But this is obviously a problem since its dark outside and they have no idea where they are going.

So, with that in mind I tell this story. Several months ago I posted a story about a young quail that had done this same thing and almost beat itself up trying to get out from under the awning. This bird here was no different, except that it decided to follow me in the house. I would imagine that, much like a moth drawn to a light, the bird may have seen the light inside the house and thought, "Hey, there's daytime!" 
So do you suppose that moths might think the same thing when they flutter about around a light? 
Anyway, this bird had flown in directly behind me and, as you could imagine, I found myself in an instant state of horror as this thing had attached itself to the back of my neck, flapping all over my head.
I quickly jerked around to see what it was that seemed to be attacking me when I saw it fly away and across the room. 
Well, the mayhem was only about to begin as Samantha, the cat, realized what was going on and instantly reverted back to her primitive instincts and went into "wild hunter" mode. The bird ran into the wall and fell to the floor, which was right in the path of the attacking predator. 
This is where I reverted back to my primitive instincts and quickly realized that I obviously didn't have any. But rather than allow the cat to destroy this little bird I immediately jumped in to try to save the bird.
The next few minutes was a frenzy, much like something out of a Sylvester and Tweety cartoon where the cat is trying to catch the bird, I'm trying to catch the cat AND the bird, and the bird is just trying to get away from both of us. Running back and forth from room to room, from the ceiling to the walls to the floor, the bird was all over the place, as was the cat. Darting around under my feet I was frantically trying not to step on the cat, clumsily stumbling and crashing and knocking things over all over the place. Luckily the place is in a state of remodeling and repair anyway. But there are a few things I might have to do over again.

But in amongst all of this chaos, as I'm lunging after the cat and trying desperately to keep it away from the fleeing prey, I imagined some of the things that might have been going through Samantha's head.
First of all, upon noticing the bird, she must have been thinking, "MINE?? Uhmm!! Hello! that's mine!! MINE!"
Then, as I'm yelling at her and trying to keep her from getting the bird, she must have been thinking, "UHMM! HELLO! STUPID! THIS IS MY JOB! THIS IS WHAT I DO!"

I eventually caught the bird, which surprisingly didn't try to bite me, and removed it from the house. It seemed to calm down after I held it for a while. So I took it out to the shop to look it over and make sure it was going to be okay and allow it a chance to calm down more. I took a few pictures of it, took it back outside and found a nice bush to set it in where it stayed.
Upon arriving back to the house, and a very annoyed and displeased Samantha, I imagined what she might have been thinking at that moment. But I just can't post those words on here. She ignored me for quite a while after that.

I hadn't seen the bird since, and imagine that it survived the ordeal okay. It had obviously been through a few bouts itself in the past as it had quite a few old battle scars around its head.

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