I think I may just be turning into a bunny hugger. I've always taken a keen interest in birding under the guise of surveying. It's really the perfect cover. Out today doing a little job I notice a common grebe sitting in the middle of a gravel airstrip baking in the sun. Now for you non bird people, this is like seeing a duck in the desert, just don't seem quite right. They're water birds that can swim like swallows fly, but can't walk or take flight on dry land, their legs are pushed way back for swimming. Finished up our work and was about to leave, but then doubled back, just couldn't leave him out there to die baking in the hot sun. So, threw my coat over him and bundled him up and drove him over to the local Fish and Game, the bird rehab place wasn't answering their phones. He's pretty banged up and dehydrated. Hope he makes it. Gives me a lot of personal pleasure watching and listening to my feathered brethren. Getting pretty good at identifying them by ear. Still enjoy eating grouse though. Get a few of those in the fall while out surveying as well. 😉
Y'all have a good weekend. Willy out.
You're fine oh katabatic one. The love of our lesser brothers here on the orb is the sign of a true human.
Found a Mississippi Kite one afternoon hopping around with an arrow through his wing. He definitely couldn't fly and would probably perish from a dog or cat as soon as he was discovered. I wrapped him in a safety vest (against his will) and took him to the closest vet. As luck would have it, the vet's wife was studying VM at OSU and worked with the aviary lab up there.
I stopped by there a week or so later and they said the Kite was healing and would be returned to the general population soon. AND they did return him back to very spot we had found him I found out later.
just good karma insurance..
:good: Amen.
Ya dun goood. Needless suffering is still needless suffering no matter what branch of the animal kingdom is involved.
A heat mirage over the gravel may have looked like water to the grebe. Once landed the bird was doomed until you came along.
Paul in PA
Well done, Willy. I think your grebe will be OK.
I picked up a water bird once that was crouching on a lane stripe on a busy street in downtown Minneapolis, doing its best to dodge the cars and trucks. It turned out to be a coot, which like the grebe can't walk or take off from land. Perhaps it had been blown to the ground by a tricky gust of wind. After a few hours quiet time in a cardboard box it seemed OK. Took it down to the river, where it wriggled into the water and dove like a fish. It surfaced again 150 feet away, and then was gone.
I thought this was going to be a post about your "Wolverine."
You did a good thing with the grebe.
Here is from last wk. Doing a job for a retired state trooper. If you want to hear good cop stories, sit for coffee with a few older cops.
He is an old softie now. He told us he had a box to go to the thrift store, sitting on his porch for a while. Went to take it to the thrift store, and found 2 bird nests in it. So, he just left it there, until the babies left the nest. (He was a pretty hard nosed guy, in his day). The 2 pics above were right next to his property.
He had great stories. But, I'll share that later.
N
"Not to hurt our humble brethren (the animals) is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission--to be of service to them whenever they require it... If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men."
--Saint Francis of Assisi
Your love of the others on this oblate spheroid of ours is alive and well with me. Last week or so walking back from the beer store I encountered a small bird trying to fly. He was jumping up and down and pitchin a fit. I didn't know if it was hurt or not. I stopped and talked to it a little and stroked it with the back side of one finger. And.. about 10 seconds later some other is raising all kinds of hell at something "nearby". Dumb a.. on me. That "something" was me and it was a Momma cardinal that come for her young'n. I immediately left. Golly mercy was that momma bird upset. Hey, I left soon as she made her racket with me. I didn't want no truck twixt a momma and her baby.
You can't tell me animals don't have souls. Sure they do. Care for an offspring and willing to assault me a hundred times bigger.
Had momma bird come to assault me that moment I might have took the feller in. In the end I was happy momma ran me off and didn't molest the little baby further.
Possibly Paul, but more likely a moron at the skeet shooting range next door to this airstrip who wasn't quite satisfied with shooting at clay pigeons. 🙁
