nekosensei

I got to Willowbrook, and they told me that they didn't take house sparrows, but there was a place nearby that did. I figured, okay, I can do that. They offered to take her in back to see how bad her injuries were, so I took them up on it. They came back with bad news. The bird was in the process of dying (most likely from some kind of head trauma) and it was highly unlikely that she would make it to the other place or that the other place would be able to do anything about it if she did make it there. They told me that I could try to take the bird there if I really wanted, but really the best thing to do was to euthanize it. I told them that I trusted their judgement on the matter and let them euthanize it. Bummer.

I guess I'm not all that surprised. It was sitting quietly when I checked on it at nine o'clock last night, but perked up when I put more food down. It didn't show much interest in flying away and it looked a little unsteady on its feet. And when I looked at it this morning, again it was sitting quietly. I kind of poked at it to get an idea of what kind of shape it was in, and it didn't respond much, just blinked up at me. Still, I was hoping that it had a chance because it did live through the night after all. Oh well. At least it had food and a quiet, comfortable place to spend its last hours.

So yeah...this seems to be the usual outcome whenever I get a sick / injured bird. I'm starting to think that, if they're too hurt to fly away in a couple of hours and they don't have any other visible injuries, then they're generally not going to recover. Brain injuries? Yeah...not so good. I'm still not sure whether I'm going to try to do this again in the future. Am I giving them any comfort or am I just prolonging their suffering by taking them in? What do you guys think?

This morning, I get to play Schrödinger's bird. Is it alive? Is it dead? Nobody knows!

And come to think of it, why did Schrödinger have to cat a for his little experiment? Cats are hardy. If you put a cat in a box overnight, chances are that it will still be alive in the morning...unless you poison it. Now, birds. That's a different story. Just put a sick birdie in the box, leave it overnight, and I say that he has a 50/50 chance of making until morning. No poison required!

So. What do you think? I leave it up to you. Is it going to be alive when I wander out there in a few minutes?

* I got a crappy night's sleep last night. Today is going to be interesting....

* Last night, doomsey and I were pulling out of our house to go to a birthday party at a friend's house when I saw a dead bird-- it looked like a robin-- lying in the street not far from our house. I couldn't get a very good look at it and I feared that it might have been the juvenile robin that's been hopping around our front yard. This morning, I looked out the window, anxious to see any sign of him. When I saw both him and the adult robin, I did a small cheer.

* doomsey and I have a lot of trees on our property, which make for great bird homes. This season, I've seen one baby sparrow, one baby robin, and two baby black birds in our front and back yards.

* Not long ago, a friend of mine suggested I should get a field guide to identify what kinds of birds are coming into our backyard. Hmmm...might not be a bad idea. I've had one little guy who used to visit our bird feeder in the fall and I have no idea what kind of bird it was. He was a dark blue on top and a lighter gray on the bottom.

* I'm such an animal lover. When I was a kid, I used to sit and watch the birds and other critters in our backyard. It got the point where I was able to not only identify birds, but also recognize their songs to some extent. To this day, it amazes me that doomsey can't distinguish between a cardinal or a robin based on its song. Maybe I should start teaching him?

* Last year, the rosebush in our garden wasn't looking very good because it had black spot, a fungus caused by too much humidity. This year, doomsey and I have been spraying it like mad. In the early spring, I picked off all the old leaves to try to keep it from getting re-infected this year. It looks like it worked because it's currently blooming like mad. doomsey took some pictures yesterday and posted them to his journal today. By the way, anybody know what kind of rosebush that is?

Wow...I'm on time with this one...

( Click here )

Here's some more pictures of that hawk I took a week ago or so. Some of them came out beautifully.

( Click here )

You know what I'm thinking? I want to get more pictures of wildlife this upcoming week. Maybe I'll take a trip to the zoo or I'll go to an animal refuge. Hmmm...

( Click here for pictures )

Several days ago, I dreamt that doomsey and I were adopting a pair of parakeets. When I woke up, my first thought was that would go *really* well. The cats would just love them. In fact, the poor birds would probably die from fright from the cats poking their paws through the bars in an attempt to get at them. I don't think fish really care about being stared at, as long as the cats decide not to dip in a paw and go fishing. A good cover takes care of that problem, by the way. On the other hand, I'm not going to torment some poor birds to death. I also understand that parakeets make lots of noise and will sometimes throw crap outside of their cage. Uh...huh...pass. I also had a family member's parrot take a shit on me once when I was over at their house visiting their new baby. I was not amused.

Today, I opened up my email and discovered that someone on freecycle needed to find a new home for their parakeets. I jokingly asked doomsey if he wanted some parakeets, and he said no.

In unrelated news, I just realized this weekend that I've had my betta two years now. I got him from a fellow freecycler so he's got to be older than two. Does anybody have any idea how long bettas live? I think...by this point...he has pretty much outlived the two fancy goldfish I used to have...despite my best efforts to kill him off. I'm really good at killing off plants, but for some reason, my fish tend to hang around...

You know...I never really did give my betta a name since he's "just a fish." If anybody out there wants to come up with name suggestions, feel free.