Little Gray Catbird

This is about an experience I had today with a gray catbird, identified with the help of this website http://www.libirding.com/LI_Birds/Welcome.html
and photos I took. It certainly was not the way I expected to spend my Saturday morning.
I was sitting at my computer in a room at the front of the house when I heard a loud thump on my living room window. I was suspicious as to what the noise was because in the forty years we have lived here I have heard it twice before, but what ensued this time was unique.
I hurried to the living room window and looked out. There was a little gray bird lying on its back at the edge of our small brick porch. It wasn’t moving, but I thought I saw its eye flickering and maybe a faint chest movement. I watched a few minutes as a strong breeze ruffled its feathers and pushed its tail upward. Its one eye that was visible to me seemed to shine briefly then close. After several moments the wind died down. It lay still.
I continued to lean on the windowsill watching and hoping. My indoor cat Cleo joined me to watch. She stayed a while her tail swishing back and forth. With no movement to attract her, she left after maybe a minute or two. I watched still. Suddenly the little bird made a valiant effort to turn itself over, but only managed to move a few inches. It remained on its back. Again its eye closed.
I went outside for the first time and gently lifted the bird. It made no effort to resist. I placed it carefully, upright on the soft leaves of a plant below the porch. It moved slightly. I went back inside and began a computer search to find out what kind of bird it was. The result: a gray catbird. A few minutes later I looked out the window. It hadn’t moved. The next time I checked, it was from outside. I dared to gently stroke its soft head. I continued to watch. It moved again, more than before, and came to rest huddled, but upright, close to the porch bricks. I got my camera and took two pictures. I wondered if I should call anyone, but who? I wanted to do something to help, but what? I searched my computer for guidance, while checking every few minutes on my beautiful little gray catbird. Then, a little less than an hour after I had heard the thump, I stepped outside one final time. It was gone. I didn’t see it fly off, but I know it did, and I hope it doesn’t have a headache.

Drive Slowly in My Neighborhood

I’ve seen more than one dead squirrel in my life. Who that lives among them hasn’t? But today I am crying for a poor little squirrel, young, digging for nuts, sniffing the almost spring air, deprived of summer sun.

My husband Don and I were about to go to the gym for our bi-weekly exercise when I glanced out the front window. There was a young squirrel, only one, alone, scurrying around on our front lawn. What a big fluffy tail it had, wider and longer than the usual it seemed to me.

“Look,” I said to Don. “Look at that squirrel’s tail! Isn’t it long?”

He glanced while putting on his coat. “Naw. They all have long tails. When I was a little kid my married sister had Persian cats. I thought squirrels were cats.”

I looked out the window again. The squirrel was foraging for something in the space between the grass and our front walk, then it hopped over the walk and continued its investigation on that side. I thought of the holes dug in the lawn, but somehow didn’t mind. I laughed to myself. Squirrels are nature’s lawn aerators. I wondered what they look for in the grass. Roots? Bugs? Probably nuts. I heard recently on good authority that squirrels do not remember where they bury their nuts. That would explain all the random digging.

“Happy hunting,” I thought.

Two hours later my husband and I returned from the gym. I drove up our street slowly preparing to turn into our driveway. It’s a busy street, a through street really, and too many people go too fast. A squirrel lay dead, hit by a car no doubt, in the middle of the road in front of our house. It made me cry. It’s just a squirrel, I told myself, thinking of a neighbor who hates them, but it wasn’t just a squirrel, it was our front yard squirrel.