fly away fly away

Last night when I came home, Theo was making a ruckus by the back dining room window. He jumped up and down on the window sill, meowed loudly, ran back and forth between us and the window, and let us know that there was Something Out There.

When I'd put down all I was lugging in from the car, I went over to inspect. There, hunched up on the ground in the garden was a medium sized bird. It seemed alert but despite Theo's clatter, it didn't move much at all.

Eventually, it moved slowly, but still hunched up, onto the patio and pecked at the concrete for a while. I started thinking about whether to make a box for it to sleep in. I called my neighbor to get his opinion. He said to just leave it -- every time the neighbor has tried to help a bird, it's died of fright.

I thought about how inevitable it was that the bird would die overnight or be swooped up and eaten. It was one of those situations where doing anything to help would make things worse.

We ate dinner. I kept checking. And then, when Robert took the compost out, I checked again and noticed the bird had gotten itself on top of a metal bench. At least it was safe from ground animals up there.

Then, as I watched, it flexed its wings -- I even saw its underarm -- it took a deep breath, and flew a short distance up into a decorative tree that's right outside the dining room window. If it could hold on for the night, it should be fine. I'm just hoping we don't find a little bird corpse under the tree any time soon.