scrawls.

scrawls

still cheaper than therapy*

17.5.04

contributed to the killing of two baby birds over the past week:

there was one in the middle of the road - a pigeon, large enough to fly, still on the small side, astonishingly dumb. and it flew away when i drove up - as birds are wont to do - and i assumed it had flown away off to the right - but it hadn't. it had flown up, and then back down and landed again, or anyway was dumb enough to somehow fly under my car, after making me think it was ok, and, at least, lose all its feathers so they could whoosh up and i could see them in the rearview. and i wasn't making much of a whoosh - i was going maybe 20. probably less. residential, you know, and i'd slowed down to let this retarded sky-rat escape. usually something they're fairly good at.

the other bird was sitting on my front lawn on saturday, having fallen out of (or been shoved out of) its nest. it could stand up, and bend its knees a bit, and stretch out its wings a little, but it couldn't hop, and it quite obviously couldn't fly. the kindest thing i could possibly have done for it would have been to step on it, or call over one the dog that's always sitting on my neighbors' porch. (she's this real friendly, playful yellow Lab - would've crunched a small, stationary bird pretty fast.) there was nothing i could do about the fire-ants. or the heat. or the lack of food. (they have to basically eat nonstop, right?) or the assorted flies. or the neighborhood cats. if i touched it, or touched something that touched it, then its parents wouldn't want it any more in any case and it would not be eaten quickly by the fire ants but killed much more slowly by starvation. and i don't know what to feed a baby bird - i think i tried that when i was little a few times, and i got all attatched, and then they always died after a day or two. so again, killed slowly, by ineptitude. and i almost stepped on it. but then i didn't have the heart. so i left.

Labels: texas

scrawled @ 15:22