A small brown handful of feathers hopping down the road mid-afternoon dragging its right wing. My wife lost sight of it as she sat in her car making the first of a half-dozen calls to find a bird rescue person. Out of the car, she saw the hawk had climbed up the snow drift heaped against my fence. It sat impassive, eyes shut, making soft chirring noises.
Oh, no. One of the neighborhood's black feral cats came padding by. My wife prepared for battle but the cat didn't see the injured bird. A man and girl walking by did see it and loudly pointed it out, prompting the bird to jump over the fence, hop down the snow and then up to my porch.
Call after call to centers that were closed, had no facilities, or advised that the bird be left along to die in nature's way without our making it worse. Meanwhile, the bird hopped up onto our railing, down onto the snow pile beneath and under some forsythia bushes.
Some time later, at dusk, a woman in a red parka from a Boston animal rescue league arrived equipped with a net. She searched under the bushes. Would the bird still be there, my wife wondered. Yes, it was. Gently rescue woman picked up the quiescent bird in two gloved hands and carried him away for evaluation and care.
It's wing is broken, she said. It may heal and, if not, we'll put it to sleep gently.
You, hawk, so commanding in the air, so greedy of mice and voles (3 or 4 a day in the winter, it's said, though I wonder how), so intimidating of eye and voice, are our patient now, submitting to our ministrations. Was it fatigue or fatalism that let you submit to our handling?
But where, I wonder, were you hopping when my wife saw you? What trek were you on, so little, so alone, so uncomplaining? Our street gets a good deal of two legged and four legged traffic, but you're the first monopod bird, little darling.
There's been a good feeling in our house this evening thinking about hawks, you rescued, and the kind hands that came to fetch and care for you. We've given you names and felt affection warm within us, but you're not a pet or a prize. You're a wild animal in a harsh environment, ever playing the odds, which now have turned against you.
You showed yourself so game through the whole episode, with a kind of indomitable resignation. Whatever befalls, the end or a new beginning, I salute you.
Oh, no. One of the neighborhood's black feral cats came padding by. My wife prepared for battle but the cat didn't see the injured bird. A man and girl walking by did see it and loudly pointed it out, prompting the bird to jump over the fence, hop down the snow and then up to my porch.
Call after call to centers that were closed, had no facilities, or advised that the bird be left along to die in nature's way without our making it worse. Meanwhile, the bird hopped up onto our railing, down onto the snow pile beneath and under some forsythia bushes.
Some time later, at dusk, a woman in a red parka from a Boston animal rescue league arrived equipped with a net. She searched under the bushes. Would the bird still be there, my wife wondered. Yes, it was. Gently rescue woman picked up the quiescent bird in two gloved hands and carried him away for evaluation and care.
It's wing is broken, she said. It may heal and, if not, we'll put it to sleep gently.
You, hawk, so commanding in the air, so greedy of mice and voles (3 or 4 a day in the winter, it's said, though I wonder how), so intimidating of eye and voice, are our patient now, submitting to our ministrations. Was it fatigue or fatalism that let you submit to our handling?
But where, I wonder, were you hopping when my wife saw you? What trek were you on, so little, so alone, so uncomplaining? Our street gets a good deal of two legged and four legged traffic, but you're the first monopod bird, little darling.
There's been a good feeling in our house this evening thinking about hawks, you rescued, and the kind hands that came to fetch and care for you. We've given you names and felt affection warm within us, but you're not a pet or a prize. You're a wild animal in a harsh environment, ever playing the odds, which now have turned against you.
You showed yourself so game through the whole episode, with a kind of indomitable resignation. Whatever befalls, the end or a new beginning, I salute you.
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