For the Bird

Nonfiction / Kourtney Johnson

Two months after my step­fa­ther shoots him­self, my orange tab­by finds a baby bird in the front yard. Fall­en fledg­lings are com­mon dur­ing the rainy Okla­homa springs and sum­mers; fresh­ly feath­ered birds drop from the nest before they can fly, hop along the grass and stretch their wings while Mama Bird keeps a watch­ful eye from above, swoop­ing down for the occa­sion­al feed­ing. With­in a week of falling, most bird fly. A res­cuer of tur­tles, dogs, cats, and rats my whole life, I know bet­ter than grab­bing the seem­ing­ly aban­doned baby bird and throw­ing it in a cage. Just leave them be; they’re prob­a­bly fine. 

            But this one is too pink, the tiny body just sprout­ing tubed feath­ers at the edges of its wings. Its small black eyes blink too slow­ly as it shiv­ers. I shoo my cat, cor­ral her inside and grab my gar­den­ing gloves. On my way back out­side, I google, when to inter­vene fall­en bird. The arti­cles stress warmth: does the bird have enough feath­ers to stay warm?

            Naked new­borns are swad­dled in nests of sticks, feath­ers, and what­ev­er insu­la­tion the moth­er can find. Pressed in tight with their sib­lings, they retain heat even through rainy spring nights. My bird is near­ly feath­er­less and grog­gy, move­ments slow. I scoop him into my gloved hands, care­ful of his tooth­pick legs and paper wings, and deposit him into the t‑shirt lined shoe­box I’ve assem­bled, the heat­ing pad set on low. He nods off to sleep almost imme­di­ate­ly, and I place the box on the cor­ner of my desk, hell­bent on sav­ing this bird’s life.

            The first goal is ren­est­ing, Google informs me. The nest will be close by, like­ly in a tall tree or porch gut­ter. Place the nestling care­ful­ly into the orig­i­nal nest. Hide near­by and wait for Mama Bird to return for a feed­ing— she will be close by. Ensure she feeds the returned nestling. If she does, you have suc­cess­ful­ly ren­est­ed the bird. 

            If you can­not find the orig­i­nal nest, or it has been destroyed, you will need to con­struct a new nest and hang it near to the orig­i­nal. Place the nestling in the new nest. Again, hide, wait for the moth­er and ensure she vis­its the new nest. 

            If she ignores the new nest or refus­es at any time to feed the fall­en bird, the moth­er has aban­doned the baby. Please call your local wildlife rehab­ber for fur­ther assistance. 

            I locate the nest eas­i­ly, the high pitch chirps from above my head betray­ing the hid­den home. They’re in my roof, a gap in the cracked porch ceil­ing large enough for what­ev­er bird to slip through. Days of heavy rain had widened the open­ing, rat­tling the nest and send­ing the shiv­er­ing bird on my desk tum­bling. I attempt to slide my hand through the crack and bare­ly get my fin­gers through, let alone a cupped palm and its passenger.

            I adapt, dump the lotions and sprays from the wick­er bas­ket on my bath­room counter and begin nest con­struc­tion. Try­ing to mim­ic a real nest, I twist branch­es from my front yard into an awk­ward oval and place it in the bas­ket. On the porch, and nail the bas­ket to a sup­port beam as close to the gap as pos­si­ble, test the dura­bil­i­ty, and move the cocooned bird into his new home. It’s ear­ly in the day, sun bright over­head, and I decide to wait in my truck parked in the dri­ve­way to stake out the nest, hope Mama Bird flies by.

            It’s feed­ing time, the nestlings’ screams for food audi­ble in the cab of my closed truck. I spot a flash of wings soar from beside the house and onto the gut­ter, the small brown bird paus­ing for a heart­beat before dis­ap­pear­ing into the cracked roof. She’s quick, flits back onto the edge of the roof. From the makeshift nest, the dis­placed bird shouts, and Mom hears, her head flip­ping quick­ly around, seek­ing the source of the squawk­ing. I hold my breath as she bounces along the roof for a few min­utes before fly­ing away. She returns twice with­in the hour, swoop­ing into the orig­i­nal nest but nev­er feed­ing the nois­i­est chirp­er wail­ing from my makeshift nest. My bird has been abandoned.

            New­born birds are rav­en­ous, eat­ing every half-hour. My bird, shiv­er­ing and lethar­gic, like­ly hadn’t eat­en since I’d found him, and I search for the best way to feed the hun­gry, screech­ing mouth. Thir­ty min­utes lat­er, I spoon sog­gy cat food into a need­less syringe. The chick wails as his head tilts back, tiny yel­low beak agape, wait­ing for the next mouth­ful. I work slow­ly, care­ful each bite is swal­lowed com­plete­ly, no food block­ing the bird’s throat. After a few plunges, the mouth clos­es, silent and con­tent, and he bur­rows into the fake nest, final­ly peaceful.

            I decide to leave him out­side, check every hour for any sign of Mama Bird vis­it­ing the nest. But he’s always scream­ing when I peak my head over the edge, mouth gap­ing, beg­ging. As night falls, the tem­per­a­ture drops twen­ty degrees, and I fear the naked newborn’s abil­i­ty to sur­vive the night. Again, I lift the baby, cup him in gloved hands and relo­cate him to the orig­i­nal box, heat­ing pad ready. The first night, he sleeps in the bath­room, away from the cat but close to help, if my Bird needs me.

            At five the next morn­ing, hun­gry cries echo through my small house. I mix water and bits of cat food, wait for the appro­pri­ate mush lev­el. In the bath­room, Bird is wide awake and impa­tient, scrawny head wig­gling as food descends. We sit in the floor for about fif­teen min­utes, the cat paw­ing curi­ous­ly against the door from out­side. Even­tu­al­ly, Bird’s mouth clos­es, his eyes hood, and he falls asleep in the warmth of the t‑shirt. I clean the bits of food and poop around him, wash­ing my hands and dou­ble check­ing his breath­ing before I head back to bed.

            At a more appro­pri­ate hour for wak­ing, we repeat the feed­ing process, and I return Bird to his faux nest out­side. Social­iza­tion is inte­gral to a bird’s devel­op­ment, for prac­ti­cal things like learn­ing to eat and fly to devel­op­ing a healthy fear of humans. With­in the first few weeks of life, birds imprint on their pri­ma­ry care­tak­ers, baby ducks falling in line behind their moth­er or pen­guins learn­ing to slide along the ice. If dis­rupt­ed, a new­born may claim a human as par­ent, alien­at­ing them from oth­er birds and eras­ing the need to avoid peo­ple. These birds often die when released, unable to fend for them­selves in the wild. I hope by leav­ing Bird out­side, near his sib­lings, he may retain his avian affluence.

            I call a local wildlife rehab­ber who directs me back to the inter­net: I need to iden­ti­fy Bird. I peak into the nest, snap a pic­ture before scrolling through hun­dreds of Birds from Okla­homa life cycle images. With­out feath­ers, many birds look the same, pink, fleshy bod­ies with over­sized beaks. I hold Bird and the birds side by side, remem­ber the size and col­or of his moth­er, nar­row down the options before con­firm­ing: Bird is a House Sparrow.

            Orig­i­nal­ly native to Europe, house spar­rows were intro­duced pur­pose­ful­ly to the Unit­ed States in the 19th cen­tu­ry as a form of pest con­trol. The birds repro­duced rapid­ly and aggres­sive­ly, knock­ing eggs from for­eign nests to lay their own or killing the orig­i­nal moth­ers all togeth­er, and earned Inva­sive sta­tus. They remain one of the most plen­ti­ful species of avian on the plan­et. If able, those with a house spar­row infes­ta­tion should euth­a­nize humane­ly by seal­ing off the loca­tion of the nest, induc­ing star­va­tion and inhibit­ing the moth­er from return­ing, or call their local wildlife rehabber.

            The rehab­ber con­firms when I call: yes, Bird is like­ly an inva­sive species and will be euth­a­nized upon arrival. When will I be drop­ping him off?

            I feed Bird again (remem­ber, every thir­ty min­utes), and he leaps up slight­ly at the sight of my hand, thin legs grow­ing strong enough to lift his tiny body. For the first time, I run a gloved fin­ger along his head, offer the miss­ing touch of fel­low nesters, and real­ize my inabil­i­ty to send Bird to cer­tain death. We repeat the pre­vi­ous day’s rou­tine, and I again secure him in the bath­room, dou­ble check his heat­ing pad before shut­ting off the lights.

            As I car­ry Bird to the nest the next morn­ing, a line of black ants guides my eyes to the dead bird rot­ting just off the porch. It’s anoth­er fall­en nestling, its wings slight­ly more feath­ered than my bird, but still most­ly pink. Half of the body’s already skele­tal, ants and mag­gots strip­ping the flesh from the tiny bones. Car­ry­ing the decom­pos­ing bird to the gar­den for bur­ial, I cry, apol­o­gize for the rick­ety roof, the hard fall onto the pave­ment, my inabil­i­ty to save them too. From his nest, Bird squawks, reminds me of his hunger, and I head inside to mush more cat food.

            For a week, my days revolve around Bird, the con­stant feed­ings, check­ing his weight gain and feath­er growth. He’s pro­gress­ing nor­mal­ly, accord­ing to the bird res­cue forums I’ve joined, and I’ve moved him from small box to free roam­ing the bath­tub as his wings flap exper­i­men­tal­ly. He hops along, flap­ping and wig­gling, and I know soon he’ll begin to fly. His feath­ers fill in, no more pink vis­i­ble between the flecks of brown and black.

            For feed­ings, Bird starts perch­ing on my fin­ger, grip strength­en­ing every time. I keep plac­ing him in the nest out­side dur­ing the day, but I warm to the idea of keep­ing him, won­der­ing if he’s poten­tial­ly imprint­ed on me as his moth­er. I start talk­ing to him, call him, “Pret­ty Bird,” and offer him food from my hand instead of the syringe. I research cages. I say, “It just feels like the right thing to do,” nev­er men­tion the poten­tial hav­oc Bird may bring to less aggres­sive birds or my self­ish­ness in rais­ing an inva­sive species for release. In my world, I just need some­thing to survive.

            One after­noon, I car­ry my mushy cat food bowl up to the nest, say, “Hey, Pret­ty Bird,” and find the makeshift nest emp­ty. I pan­ic, assum­ing anoth­er leap and check the ground for my Bird. No ants, no pink, just grass, and I real­ize he’s gone. I talk to him from the porch, wait for my princess moment, but no Bird arrives to land on my fin­ger or perch in my hair. My cat meows beside me, she too notic­ing the lack of chirps we’ve grown to expect. I dump the food and begin to tear down my nest. My mom calls, asks how Bird’s doing before I inform her of the aban­doned nest. “That’s great. You did a good thing, baby,” and I des­per­ate­ly hope she is right. I leave the nest nailed to the beam, in case Bird comes back, in case anoth­er bird falls.

From the writer

 

:: Account ::

I took a large step away from writ­ing after fin­ish­ing my master’s pro­gram. Still in the weeds of quar­an­tine, I’d grown to dread the act of cre­ation and trans­for­ma­tion, too stuck in my own head for any type of self-reflection.

After my stepfather’s sui­cide last spring, life became very bina­ry: alive and dead, right and wrong. The human world felt too clean, too scrubbed of the heav­i­ness of loss. The ani­mal king­dom is often rec­og­nized as the ulti­mate exam­ple of death and its bru­tal­i­ty, and I found nature to be a great com­fort in the uncer­tain­ty of this grief. Birds I clung to specif­i­cal­ly, with their loy­al­ty, resilience, and gor­geous brutality.

This essay com­bines the truth of my bird reha­bil­i­ta­tion hob­by with the truth of know­ing we can’t save them all; but still des­per­ate­ly trying.

Kourt­ney John­son holds an MFA in Cre­ative Writ­ing from Okla­homa State Uni­ver­si­ty. She now lives in Albu­querque, New Mex­i­co, where she writes about shel­ter ani­mals. Her essays have pre­vi­ous­ly appeared in Wac­ca­maw, Switch­back, and LEVITATE.