A Remarkable Event

 

I love to sit outside during the spring. The front of my house becomes a very busy place. Daffodils and hyacinths are blooming. The birds are chirping non-stop and, if you listen carefully, you will hear different types of bird calls that you don’t hear during the other seasons.

One early morning, I took my cup of coffee downstairs and sat outside. I could see and smell the hyacinths in the garden. The daffodils were marching in a bright yellow line next to the fence. The birds were singing all different kinds of songs as they greeted the sun.

Just as I took a sip of my coffee and started relaxing, I heard a bird chirping and it sounded very close to where I was. I turned my head quickly towards my pine tree and there on the ground was a baby bird. If I had to guess, I’d say it was not more than a month old.

“It must have fallen out of its nest in the pine tree,” I said to myself. “Or maybe it was trying to fly and couldn’t get off the ground,” I said under my breath. I decided it was my responsibility to get this baby bird back in its nest even though I had no idea how to do this.

I google it and find out a couple of helpful things. One, don’t touch the bird with your bare hands because the mother bird will sense this and reject her baby. Two, when putting the baby bird back in the nest, keep an eye out for the mother bird who might swoop down and attack you. Okay, these things were really good to know.

I enlist the help of my next-door neighbor, Fred. He is willing to assist me. He brings out a ladder and a five-fingered potholder to pick up the bird. Fred opens the ladder, puts the potholder on, picks up the baby bird and puts it back in the nest. Our main concern now is that the mother doesn’t see us and try to attack. Fred and I were extremely nervous about this.

We waited maybe two minutes and then Fred slowly started moving the ladder away from the nest. All of a sudden, something landed on Fred’s head. We both

almost fainted from fear. Fred almost dropped the ladder. The very next second, Fred realized he left the potholder on top of the ladder. It was the potholder that fell off the ladder and landed on his head, it wasn’t the mother bird trying to attack him. Fred and I were so relieved, we just started laughing uncontrollably from the realization that a potholder attacked his head, not mother bird!

We never saw the baby bird again. We decided we did the right thing by scooping the baby bird off the ground and placing it back in its nest. As for Fred, his bird rescuing days are over and he won’t say what he did with the potholder.

Ellen