Strange Bird

Around 2:30pm today, while everyone except Ralphie was out grocery shopping, I came out from the kitchen into the dining room, and saw a bird just standing there on the ground. It must have come through one of the open windows: it was a warm day today, so several windows were open, and none have flyscreens. I went to get the digital camera, and when I came back it was walking into the kitchen.

(Kitchen = green linoleum)

It was remarkably tame -- or perhaps a bit dim? Or, injured? I say this because it let me get within an arm's reach of it, yet it showed no fear. And it was not moving in the rapid, jerky ''bird-like'' manner I would expect. It simply stood, then walked; stood, then walked.

Throughout all this it did not make a sound.



Then it came back through the dining room, into the laundry room.

The wooden gate is to allow us to keep the door open for the breeze, yet prevent Ralphie from pinching the laundry and chewing them.



Ralphie came over and sniffed at the gate, but the bird was safely inside.




Ralphie barked, and the bird hopped up onto the louvres. It sat there a while, and I took a few more photos. This time, I got within two feet of it.

I then thought I would go outside and shoot a brief video clip of it. By the time I got outside, it had hopped down onto the grass, by the side of the house. I tried to get the video footage, but the batteries abruptly went flat.

I went inside for more batteries, and by the time I returned, the bird had walked to the front of the house. I thought perhaps it was hungry or thirty -- this would explain its lack of energy -- so I went inside and got two bowls off the pile of dirty dishes. I placed some stale Cheerios into one (we feed them to Ralphie as a treat), and half-filled the other with water.

I placed the bowls some distance in front of the bird -- who simply stood there. To encourage it, I gently tossed a Cheerio in its direction. It walked forwards, picked it up, dropped it, picked it up again, and dropped it again. ''Perhaps it is too thirsty to eat something so hard'', I thought to myself. I made small splashing noises with the water in the second bowl, then stepped back. The bird walked forward and stepped into the bowl (Well -- that is efficient!!!), and took several drinks, dipping its beak into the bowl, then tilting it's head back to glug-glug-glug it down.

I tried taking a photo, but the camera batteries again were flat. (??!!) I went back inside, but discovered that the rest of the rechargeable batteries were in the ''to be recharged'' bowl. However, out of the several ''dead'' pairs, I attempted to milk one or two last shots out of some.

Note the brown contents in the water bowl that did not exist in the first photo. In hindsight, perhaps I should not have used our ''real'' bowls.

Now lacking the ability to take any sort of photo, I sat with the bird a while longer, then went back inside for a nap. As I slept, I dreamt of writing a children's picture book based on the experience, in which a bird flew into our house and stayed around the yard thereafter: I named him Andy, and fed him hot cocoa in the winter -- in the illustration, he wore a red striped scarf -- and raspberry smoothies in the summer. When I awoke from my nap it was around six, and near dark. I went outside, but Andy had apparently left.


--TG

(P.S. I think Tara -- a blog-lady who likes birds -- would have enjoyed this. It was a magical experience.) :)