I am on my way to the "Rock 'n Roll" Ralph's last night. So I take Sunset Boulevard from downtown when this is my grocery site du jour. Around the kind of seedy, but up and coming Elysian Park area, getting towards dusk, I see a black bird, clearly injured, trying to get to the quasi-safety of the sidewalk. I am amazed at his focus about doing that. I also know that given all the cars speeding past him as he hop-jumps as if he can fly, which he can't, he is about to be squished. In the universe of ills, one about to be squished to death starling (I think that's what he was) is not a blip on the cosmos' screen, and my initial thought, as I was going the opposite direction from where the bird was fighting for its life, was to say "Don't be silly, Djinn. How will you get to him even if you turn around and park?" But the image that came to mind of his being alive as I left him with me just going about my life, made me more than guilty. The picture horrified me. Made me feel vile. What's the difference between this bird (if a starling, they are considered pests, and not, by the way, to my animal loving mind)and the many already dead and packed chickens I have consumed with gusto without a moment's concern. This bird is arguably even more inconsequential to a carnivore. But, there WAS something different, even if I couldn't put my finger on it. Maybe it was that in some part I had the power of life and death in that moment, and I was going for the side of life, if fate would intervene, and part the cars that I'd have to get past to get him.
I made a u-turn. I found a quick spot (that itself was a miracle). By the time I was able to do this though, moments this bird did not have, in particular, if it moved from the center of the street, it could have been over. And there were the left turner also. I do not know how they missed him. But there he was. Still.
The traffic also miraculously, broke, and I almost had him, but he popped in front of a slowly travelling car, who obviously saw me chasing him. He stopped. I reached out. I grabbed. There was no time for the makeshift towel. And I got him and started to the sidewalk. The bird was surprisingly able to maneuver with his broken wing and escaped my hand to the sidewalk, but since he couldn't fly I was able to get him again. All the while I am reminded that the last time I saved a bird, he died in the hat I placed him in for safekeeping, terrified out of his avian mind.
Another hat. Another bird. I placed him in the hat and covered him with pants I intended to give away. He freaked. I figured I'd be burying him shortly in my back yard.
I thought, maybe he can move now, so I got out and placed him near a tree, where he promptly fell over and shook profusely. Great, the bird is having a seizure. No. So back to the car, but this time, though you are not supposed to touch wild animals too much, for a variety of reasons, I held him in my left hand and drove with my right, and used my left thumb to pet his tiny head. Mostly he calmed down, and then there was the occasional effort to get away, and a pitiful squawking sound that made me feel like the Wicked Witch of the West. Here I am trying to do the right thing and get him to my animal hospital, and I am unintentionally torturing one of God's creatures.
I hoped that though I have only seen dogs and cats at the animal hospital, that the word "animal" would encompass my bird, who, at this point, I had named "Harry". "Harry" was not pleased. But the reception people looked at me and my bird askance and pointed out that their vets had no expertise with birds, and, they can't take in "wild animals". This bird fit fully in my left hand. A little squeeze and it would be no more, "wild" I guess applies, but it was kind of amusing. They were nice, though, and helped me call around. One place said that even if they took it, because it was wild they would have to euthanize it. They sent me to the voice recording of a wildlife center in the Santa Monica Mountains. There were instructions on how to care for the bird overnight. I had already violated several rules, but it is very hard to do some of that whilst running across a trafficked street in the near dark.
They did, however, have a box and a towel into which I could put the bird and provide a bit of quiet and warmth and security. I left a message on the machine of the wildlife center with hope they'd call me and my errand of mercy would not end in a dirge.
I have three cats. The bird looked like he would expire any time, a little like a stuffed bird, with just about as much limpness.
Luckily I have a large walk in closet I use as a library, and he spent the night safely ensconced and so far as I can tell, no cat got a whiff of feathers. I checked on him before I went to bed and he actually was standing, and moving without jerking various parts of his body.
At 9 a.m. I had a call from the Center. They asked me all sorts of questions about the color of the bird, his beak and his feet. I hadn't looked that closely. But it turns out that they want to be sure that the caller is legitimate. So much so that they won't give you their address until they are certain. I said that I hadn't looked in the box, and I was a little afraid to after 8 plus hours. Phone in hand, I went to the closet and carefully opened the box, and saw, nothing. How could the bird escape? then I realized there was a bump in the towel. He had moved under it for extra safety and was looking up at me with his pinprick black eyes.
Off we went, Harry and I, he becoming more agitated as we reached the wooded mountainous area where the center is. They whisk them away, they do, with the proviso that you can't join them in the examination because, again, they want to limit human contact. I don't know. That ship might have sailed with Harry. They let me look through the door and Harry was in the hands of a young vet (this is non-profit and free)and well, good news, I don't know about his future, but I left him alive, just as another family brought in a huge beautiful owl that had been hit by a car. Harry was placed in a new, and special box, second to the more exotic owl. But that was ok, at least, I thought, he has a chance. And I can, and will call, to see if he makes it.
The wildlife center is about to have a new volunteer, if only to learn how to handle this creatures upon which I seem more often than not to come upon in precarious situations.
Djinn and All Creatures Great and Small, mostly small.
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