Quick Little Bird Story

Just as I finished my blog-post of this morning (just 10 minutes ago), we heard a noise coming from the back of the house. My husband is working in his study and I heard him say "What was that?"

I knew exactly what it was because I've heard that same noise so many times since we've lived here. There are floor-to-ceiling windows in all the rooms that look out onto our backyard. The big windows are lovely for us, but not too safe for the birds that fly into our yard for the seeds that I put in the bird-feeders.

The noise we heard was a bird hitting the windows. It has happened so much over the years that I rearranged the furniture on the outside deck... I have a small sofa on the deck underneath the breakfast room windows, which the birds seem to fly into most often. With that sofa there, they have a soft place to fall after they hit the windows. Much better than having them fall onto the wooden deck, which adds to their trauma.

I went into the breakfast room after I clicked on the "publish" button before, and sure enough, there was a small brown sparrow sitting on the sofa out on the deck. The poor birds get so frightened and so stunned that they begin to hyperventilate as soon as they fall away from the window.

I went out to the deck and picked up the bird and held it in my hands. The warmth of your hands will calm the bird down. His wings weren't broken, so that was good. He was hyperventilating so badly that he couldn't close his beak, poor thing. I just stood there for about two minutes, holding onto him and saying in my mind "Please don't die, please don't die, please don't die." I have had birds who haven't survived the crash, if they hit the windows hard enough. And I didn't want a dead bird on my conscience today... not on Barry Day!

I stood there just cupping the bird in my hand while his little bird-eyes watched me. ShadowBaby had heard the noise against the window and he was watching me from the screen-porch. Every few seconds, he'd meow a little bit. "Give me the birdy, give me the birdy." Not a chance, baby-cat, not a chance.

The bird got his act together in about three minutes. I knew he was going to be okay when I felt him trying to move inside my cupped hands. I opened my hands up and he flew up into the crape myrtle tree by the bird-feeders. Wonderful... a little birdy-life saved!

I knew this was going to be a Barry-good day!