Sometimes our greatest strength can also be our greatest weakness. My strength is a sensitive heart, especially when it comes to animals. Well, this has caused me endless stress and probably taken at least 15 years off my life to date! Case in point our dog Lucky (who single handedly or single "pawedly" shorten my life by at least 10 years). Well, the latest in stress producing animals was a small family of Killdeer birds.
A while back I set a goal to always walk or ride my bike to church - thinking this would provide me with a little exercise and possible add quality years to my life - WRONG! Sunday as I was happily pedaling home I noticed a couple of small birds fluttering around a storm drain. A normal person would probably say, "Oh look- birds" and then happily continue on their way, unfortunately I am not a normal person and I just had to go and investigate. Well, to my shock and surprise 3 small killdeer birds had fallen down the storm drain. Ahhh, why me! Of course the drain was far too deep for anyone to reach down and grab the birds out. So I continued home, but I couldn't get the baby birds off my mind. After dinner I decided that I needed to take some action. I walked around the garage for a while and decided to make the birds a small ladder so they could walk up it with some coaxing from their mother. With duct tape and chicken wire I made a "ladder" that I put down the storm drain. See Miss M with exhibit A.
I watched the birds for a while. The mother and father would not venture into the drain but were trying to get the babies to climb up the ladder. I left them to their own devices for a while but couldn't just "let it go". So about an hour later, I grabbed Doodle and we headed back to the storm drain to see how they were doing. Well no luck, the babies were still stuck on the bottom. Doodle and I tried to lift the drain but those things are heavy and we couldn't budge it.
I returned home and started making some phone calls. A guy who worked for the city told me that those drain covers do lift off but it could be tragic if the drain fell on a finger or foot. I began weighing the options.....fingers/baby birds, fingers/baby birds..... in the end fingers won and I decided that if the birds were going to be rescued it would have to be with the drain cover on. After a few more calls to friends (thanks Kim) I decided that I would sew a net, attach it to
a long pole and see if could scoop the birds out. See Miss M with exhibit B.
After the pole and net were built, I decided I needed moral support and possibly some smaller hands (AB was out of town in Mexico) so I called a good friend JME and her daughter H to come with me on MISSION: RESCUE KILLDEER. Well, all is well that ends well... even if you stressed out enough to kink your neck and take a few more years off your life. See exhibit C, D, E. Once the babies were out of the drain and safely in the dirt on the side of the road, the mother bird flew over and sat on them covering them and protecting them with her wings. I guess the moral of this story is that if you want to have relaxing Sunday evenings - DRIVE TO CHURCH!
1 comment:
I had never heard of a killdeer bird until Jo and I went to This is the Place Monument and she showed me one. You are a true animal lover. I can't think of anyone but you who would try so hard to save them. Good job. I think it is great. Your ideas were great...glad the net worked. You might be able to market it. It looks like a good one. How did you pull them through the grate. It looks too small?
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