Danged if my yard isn't the rescue center for the neighborhood.
I knew something was wrong when I let Dozer out to potty and noticed an adult bird squished onto the edge of the garden shed's foundation, which is about four inches above ground, and sticks out about an inch and a half from the shed's walls. This was a rather strange place for a bird to sit, and even stranger still, the bird wasn't really moving.
Dozer took a leak, then made a beeline for the bird. He was as perplexed as I was, I'm sure; most birds fly away as soon as he comes outside. Confronted by a giant drooling beast, this particular bird made a valiant effort to take off, but never gained much altitude, and in a few moments it had slammed into the chain link fence on the other side of the yard.
I called Dozer (who had lost interest in the bird) into the house. Byrd tossed me a hand towel, and I went out and caught the bird. It was an adult dove with one closed eye and tons of downy feathers sloughing off its body. Nothing was obviously broken or bloody save the eye.
I put the dove in the cat trap with some dove food (yes, I keep a bag of dove food in the cabinet; it comes in handy more frequently than one would expect), a small dish of water, and the hand towel.
Tomorrow I will go downtown for the March of Dimes walk, then come back home, pick up the dove, and take it to the wildlife rescue center for treatment. I'm surprised they don't recognize me yet, but I suppose bringing in one injured animal per quarter is not frequent enough. (/grin)
1 comment:
Guess I'm gettin' old, because your dove story reminds me of our dove story. We have two grown-up daughters. The first job the older one got about 25 years ago was a terrible mismatch, PLUS there was a guy who kept hitting on her. His last name was "Wiggy." At that time, my younger daughter was working as an aide at a local veterinarian's office. Someone brought in a white dove that couldn't fly. (Born with malformed legs.) The vet planned on euthanizing it, but Becky wouldn't hear of it. She brought "Wiggy" home and he lived a reasonably happy life (I guess) in a cage for six years. He was plump and pretty, but finally he died a natural death. Becky cried buckets.
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