Monday, April 15, 2013

I need to remember to close the screen door


I was upstairs at the computer helping my sister with her taxes  A couple times I heard something hitting a window.  It didn't occur to me until we got back downstairs that a bird had gotten into the house again.  

I don’t even remember leaving the screen door open.  I've been trying to be more careful about closing it.

As always, the birds fly from the family room into the living/dining room and try to get out via the transom windows.  Why don't they just go out the way they came in?  

I looked around but didn't see it.  Barb saw it standing on the ceiling fan.  It was a curved bill thrasher.  When it saw us, it flew to the south transom and landed on the ledge.  I opened the front door and tried to shoo it towards the door.  My tiny little sister clung to Bogie's collar to keep him from escaping, or chasing the bird. 

Instead, the bird flew from the south transom to the north transom.  Only 10 feet from the open front door.  But that was 10 feet to the left and 8 feet down.   It's hard to get a frightened bird to fly down. 

I waved my arms at it again, hoping it would sense the open door.  This has worked in the past.  Only I startled it too much.  It hit the south transom hard enough to knock itself out.  The bird lay crumpled on the floor.  My sister was sliding on the tile as Bogie dragged her towards the fallen creature. 

Thankfully, I got there first.  I scooped it up and hurried outside, closing the screen door so my sister didn't have to struggle with Bogie.  He stood and whined at the door.  

I sat on the bench in the entryway and stroked the thrasher while it blinked.  I was grateful it wasn't dead.  

After a couple minutes, I sat it on the bench.  It didn't seem like it could stand, so I went to pick it up again, to see if anything had gotten broken.  But it jumped away from me and clung to the stucco on the side of the house.

I stood up and the thrasher jumped from the stucco onto the landscape rocks. It just stood there, watching me.  

My sister and I went out to eat.  When we left, the thrasher was still hanging out under the bench, hopping away from us.  It was about an hour before we got back to the house.  The thrasher was not hanging around by the front door.  Nor was it laying dead in the near vicinity.

This morning I walked the perimeter of the back yard checking to see if the thrasher had died anywhere in the yard.  It hadn't.  

There is more than one thrasher so I will not know whether the one that got hurt survived.

But I can hope. 

No comments :

Post a Comment