Saved One

There were two birds, actually.  They must have been sitting side by side on the low hanging branch of the liquidambar tree as I came by with my reel mower. They startled out of their low perch, but they could not fly away very far, because they ran into the glass door to my room, and beside that was our eight foot tall fence.

The first bird did not make it, because just as I was planning to take its picture, Leo caught it in his mouth, and by the time I could get him to release it, its neck was broken. But I was able to save the second bird.

I found it in the middle of the yard, and it flew off to the corner by the fence. So I went and got a towel and used it to pick the bird up, and I carried it out to the front yard, where I released it, and the bird flew off.

We cannot save everybody. That is impossible. But sometimes we can help a little.

A Bird in the Pen

A tiny bird somehow found its way into the outer pen yesterday afternoon. This happens every once in a long while.

Bow felt the need to chase the bird around and even to display at the tiny intruder.

I asked him not to hurt the bird, but he seemed to be trying to catch it.

The bird managed to avoid  Bow.

Eventually, it sought refuge in the indoor airlock,

There I was able to trap it in a tupperware container. And then I released it safely outside on the front porch. It flew away. End of story.

Bird Update

I spoke too hastily about the bird. Bow can see things that I cannot see, so whereas I believed the bird had flown off, I think he knew all along that it had merely hidden. So when he went back outside later this morning, the bird was still there, and he knew exactly where it was, and caught it again, and was rough with it. He did release it to me once more when I asked him to, and I took it immediately into the house to save it from Bow. Because, let's face it, Bow is not kind to smaller animals.

In the house, the bird got to feeling more secure, so it got away from me before I could release it, but I could see that one wing was injured and it could not fly.

I eventually cornered it in the bathroom and released it in the front yard.

I know that its chances of surviving out there with an injured wing are not wonderful, but it has a  better chance out there than in the house. It does seem to be healthy otherwise, and the problem may mend itself, given a little time. There is plenty of food on the ground for a small bird to eat out there, so it is just a question of avoiding predators.

As for Bow, he is quite blasé about the whole thing. Napping again.

A Bird in the Hand

So it's back to our normal routine.

Bow takes my pinkie and he spells out what he wants.

What he wants is often predictable, like asking for his blanket.

He wants his blanket so he can take a nap. No major headlines here. Just routine.

At other times, we go outside, where very unexpected things can happen. For instance, this morning there was a tiny bird inside the outer pen. I do not know how it managed to get in there.

Bow interacting with the bird

Bow just wanted to shoo it away. He does not like having intruders. But when the bird would not leave, he became determined to catch it. And catch it he did.

I'm sorry. I didn't get any pictures of that part. I was just too worried about the bird. Bow had it held, scrunched up in the palm of his hand, and the little bird's chest was heaving so fast, I was afraid it was going to have a heart attack.

"Bow, let Mommy have the bird," I told him.

Reluctantly, he handed it to me. I was afraid it might have been injured, but I think it was just so frightened that it remained in my hand without putting up a fight. I  released it into an area that is between the outer pen and the inner pen, and eventually it flew out somehow. It was a tiny bird, and I think that it could actually squeeze through the grid holes.

I later told Bow thank you for letting me save the bird, because I did not want it to die,  and he spelled "That's good,"    זה טוב.

I don't think Bow wanted the bird to die, either, He just did not want it flying in his space. Now he is peacefully napping again.

The Cycle of Life

Cherry picking season is over. I wrote about that this morning in The Feast Before Us. No more cherries. But that's okay, because there are other kinds of fruit ripening. It's part of the cycle of life, that every fruit has its season. Each comes into our lives when its time is ripe, and so we don't run out of fruit all at once. It seems almost as if nature intended it that way, and it's a part of the cycle I am happy to go along with.

There are other aspects of the cycle of life, however, that most of us find a little more disturbing.  If you are squeamish, you may want to skip the rest of this post, because it's about life and death and eating and getting eaten. It's not the peaceful realm of botany, my friends.

Today after lunch, Bow wanted to go outside, and he settled happily on the bench to chew his cud. I snapped some pictures.

Bow sometimes hides his mouth when he's chewing, as a mark of politeness, I suppose.But he was happy and content, and when I asked him to let me take a better picture, he obliged.

The two outdoor dogs, Leo and Brownie, were also lounging peacefully outside. Bow and Leo are good friends, and Leo likes to sit in a wrought iron chair right next to the part of the pen where Bow's bench is.

Leo has a brand new red collar that Sword gave him, of which he is very proud. He likes showing it off. Brownie was also hanging out close by.

All of a sudden, the dogs started barking and raced toward the south fence of the yard. Bow became very animated, too. I left the outer pens to go investigate. I asked Bow if he wanted to go inside, but he preferred to stay there and to display in the direction of where the dogs were barking.

I didn't see anything in the yard through the bars of the pens, so I assumed that the things that had everybody so excited was on the other side of the fence. But when I went to the front yard to investigate, there was not much to see. So I snapped some pictures of wildflowers, thinking it was a false alarm.

But the dogs kept barking excitedly and Bow kept displaying, so I went in to check what was going on in the back yard. When I approached Brownie, the mystery was immediately cleared up. He had the severed head of snake dangling out of his mouth.

He kept tossing it up in the air and then catching it and then shaking it around. I noticed that there was still some movement in the snake head part of the snake, even though it should have already been dead.

On the ground, a little way away, I found the other half of the snake. Or rather, it was the longer and hindmost of the two parts. It looked odd to me, as part of it didn't seem like a snake at all.

I knelt to examine it. There was a half digested bird, legs first, sticking out of the snake's belly. I was curious to see the bird a little better, so I picked up the remains of the snake by its tail. For a moment, the bird dangled out of it.

Then it fell to the ground. But the bird that landed on the ground near the headless snake corpse had no head itself. It was a headless dead bird, lying next the headless dead snake that had devoured it.

And there in a nutshell is the other, scarier, more troubling part of the cycle of life. We can feel compassion for the bird that was swallowed by the snake. We can feel compassion for the snake that was killed by the dog. And we can feel the excitement of the dog, who, even though he has more than enough to eat, still enjoys hunting.

Bow and I can feel for every living creature in turn. But we can't identify with all of them at once. That would be impossible. From his vantage point in the outer pen, Bow could see all of this. When the dogs calmed down, so did Bow.

I disposed of the bodies of the bird and the snake, then I went back to check on Bow. Was he upset? Had he been traumatized by the sight of so much killing? No. He was calm and happy, lying on the bench, chewing his cud. All was right with the world.

Sights and Sounds on an Ordinary Saturday Morning

Lately there have been a couple of incidents with snakes, which I reported on this blog. There have been so many posts about snakes that it might seem to the casual reader that all we ever do around here is interact with snakes.

That's not really true. We have many, many quiet moments when nothing of any great importance seems to be happening. Sometimes Bow gets bored. But most of the time he finds plenty to do, to watch and to listen to.

It is autumn, and the days are pleasant. Bow asks to go outside often. When he is out there, he has a vantage point from which to observe nature and his immediate surroundings. There are many interesting sights and sounds. A chicken announces that it has laid an egg, and everyone is impressed. A bird cackles overhead. A dog whines to get our attention. And then there is Bow, looking on and occasionally adding his two cents worth to the conversation.