Survival of the nurtured

In which I make a heroic rescue, climb a tree, and take home some important messages.

I’ve climbed a tree a few times this week – a big, glorious Moreton Bay fig in the dog park. (Untold delight there is in still being able to hoist myself up into a tree!)

Cut back to Wednesday … a windy day, throwing a ball for Lola at lunch, about to head home. Close by the big, glorious fig tree, I nearly stood on something lying in the sun, something small and pink and grey and gasping. Bending down, I realised it was a baby bird, scraggy and repulsive and barely feathered and barely alive. What else could I do but pick it up – it fitted in the palm of my hand – and rush into the shade with it. Then I noticed a nest on the ground; clearly the wind had blown it and the baby it held from the tree. And, in my palm, a tiny little heartbeat pulsing.

Then he came to a dog.

“Are you my mother?”, he said to the dog.

“I am not your mother, I am a dog,” said the dog.

I rang WIRES, the wildlife rescue organisation. I gave the person who answered the details of my discovery, and a call was sent out on its network for a volunteer to pick the baby bird up from my address. I put the little thing back in its fallen nest and Lola on her lead and started to head home, then … I nearly stepped on a second gasping baby bird lying in the sun.

Then, a third.

THREE baby birds.