Giving the bird...

We are not "bird people." We're not into bird watching....just bird eating. We love our chicken & turkey dinners. Get the idea we're not into birds? Then why for the love of chicken tenders do we keep coming across birds that need our help???? Don't they know that we'd rather eat a bird than commune with it?

Many months ago Butchy found a pigeon with its head caught in the wooden fence on the north side of our driveway. After calling the animal authorities who told us we were on our own, we began trying to figure out how to get the bird's head out of our fence. I hadn't seen the bird yet so I trudged out to investigate. After much configuring: I pushed the board on one side of his head while pulling the other on the other side of his little bird head....meanwhile Butchy slowly raised the bird. When we put him down he wasn't able to move...he'd worn himself completely out. Being the geniuses that we are (it's true, don't bother arguing with me about it!) we grabbed a box and took Jonathan Livingston Pigeon into the house. We set him up with bread and water (there's no Geneva Convention for injured birds) and called it good. We knew he probably only needed time to recover from his harrowing ordeal.

This is not JLP...just a distant relative.

The next day when we decided his insurance would no longer cover his stay in our facility it was time to set him loose. Only thing is: he had no intention of leaving! He had it good...food, water, shelter from the elements. We had to turn the box onto its' side and then tip the stubborn guy out of it. He just wandered around pecking at the bread that had come out of the box with him...he was in no rush to leave. We wanted to make sure he could fly in the presence of danger so we clapped our hands at him. The first few tries he didn't think we were serious so he just ran a little bit away....finally we had to clap while running swiftly towards him. That would have scared anyone, he finally flew away. Not very far away...he knew our chubby-bubby butts wouldn't carry us very far. We knew he could fly so we released him on his own recognizance.

So, now we have a new patient/prisoner....

Our bedroom is in the basement. We have one of those big windows that looks out into a well. It's about 5 ft deep and the bottom of it is level with our window. Yesterday our Tiggy Boy alerted us to the fact that we had a visitor in the well. He is our little "well-watcher." Butchy investigated and said there was a little bird burrowed under the leaves. It appeared to be injured.

Our roommate had a bird cage so Butchy brilliantly cornered the bird so that its only option was to hop into the cage. So, we now have little Tibby convalescing with us.

We didn't know what kind of bird little Tibby (stands for Tiggy's Bird) and thought about taking him to a pet store so they could tell us. There was a gal at KFC that was wearing a sweatshirt with birds on it and birdhouse earrings....I felt it was a safe bet that she would know a little bit about birds. When we described Tibby to her she said he sounded like a sparrow. After looking on the internet we discovered he's a black throated sparrow.

Not Tibby.

We don't know how long Tibby will be residing with us. He's made himself right at home in his cage. He loves the bell hanging from the mirror, the little plushie and having all the seed and water he can handle. He may have to be moved to the dryer at night, Butchy doesn't enjoy his noisy antics in the middle of the night...even though we do cover him with a towel.

The fuzzy-babes (Lily Kid & Tiggy) are enjoying having their own captive food. Tibby couldn't care less about his audience....he's just a singing-swingin'-bird of joy.