Several nights ago, walking home from a late night hamburger run, I happened to catch a flutter of movement from just beneath a parked car. When I bent down to take a closer look, using my phone as a flashlight, I discovered that what I had initially thought was a baby bird, was in fact an injured adult female sparrow. I reached down and cupped the bird in the palm of my hand, wondering what I might in fact do to "help" it. I considered moving the sparrow off of the road, and placing it in the neighbor's hostas, but no, I thought, surely a cat would get it -- and, while this was likely the happiest ending possible, it seemed cruel and uncaring to leave nature to the whims of nature.
For those that know me, this is all likely little surprise. I am a person who has never been able to Leave Well Enough Alone, and my sister and I habitually "rescued" baby birds from their nests, only to have them die from something akin to well intentioned neglect. It wasn't just birds, however; our backyard was a veritable Auschwitz for urban wildlife. Aquariums on the deck held crayfish, frogs, tadpoles, box turtles, and whatever else we could wrestle away from the clutches of the great outdoors. (All with the aid of a diabolical "net" ingeniously created by our maternal grandfather -- a Maxwell House coffee can with holes drilled into the bottom and sides, and then attached to a broom handle. It allowed us to take great scoops of water, vegetation and silt from Sleepy Hollow creek and then paw through it in the hopes that some poor creature had failed to evade our reach.) I'm sure that we fancied ourselves to be zookeepers, naturalists, and scientists doing all of this for the sake of the greater good. The truth, however, is that not even the most inexperienced zoologist would ever fill a wading pool with tadpoles and crayfish or play with thumb sized frogs in the front yard (though we were always diligent to keep them wet and protect their skin from drying out). We were just curious and enamored with the natural world, and could find delight just as easily with a freshly dead robin as a in a juvenile crow that we could teach to fly by launching it from our fingers.
Favorite books and movies at the time were all centered around studious young people and their animal boon companions, which was most often a raccoon, as in the case of
Rascal, a book set at the turn of the century, and which I rechecked from my elementary school library each time it came due, so much so that the card was my name, over and over, in a juvenile scrawl. This book remains a favorite, and I remember imagining with awe the grandparent's parlor filled with taxidermied trophies, and even a (by then extinct) passenger pigeon. Also, the Disney film
My Side Of The Mountain, in which yes, a studious young man, retreats to the wilderness with his pet raccoon and along the way adds Peregrine Falcon to his menagerie. (Not only was the Betamax copy of this film worn almost entirely through, but it sparked a deep and desperate desire for a small falcon of my own; of course, this was when Peregrine falcons had been driven to the brink of extinction by pesticides, so I was more than happy to settle for a small kestrel. Of course, the realities of falconry likely would not have played well against my afore mentioned soft heartedness, so it's for the best that this dream remained unrealized.)
In the here and now, however, I walked home with my new ward cupped in the palm of my left hand, while my right clutched a bag of hamburgers. She looked from side to side, and was remarkably calm; seeming to find nothing at all strange to this new turn of events, and I resolved that, not only would I heal my poor little cripple, but that I would dub her "Edith Piaff", after the French chanteuse whose nickname had been "The Little Sparrow". My mind of course, was embracing the novelty of a sparrow friend, and conveniently ignoring the reality of "How does one care for a crippled and likely mortally injured bird?" (Though I was also repeating to myself
wash your hands before you touch anything, do not touch your food, and for god's sake, do not touch your eyes!)
Once inside the house, I determined that a shoebox was likely the best and safest place for Edith Piaff to spend her first night at her new home, and I explained this gently to Edith, as I lowered her onto my dresser, and asked that she stay still while I fetch a box from the closet. I turned my back, retrieved the shoebox, turned back, and Edith Piaff was gone. It was at this point that the harsh voice of reality interrupted what had, admittedly, become something of an uneasy reverie. It was almost 1:30 in the morning. I worked the following day. There was an injured sparrow somewhere in my bedroom. I had to do something about this before I could go to bed. This whole sparrow business was unlikely to be resolved tonight, and unless, by the grace of god, Edith Piaff passed to the great cabaret in the sky overnight, I had things that needed to be figured out. But first I had to find the sparrow, and dear god, please do not let me step on her. (This had actually happened in the fourth grade with a Zebra finch that I had absolutely adored -- and hence taken from his cage in an attempt to tame him. It's still a bit much to get into, but let's just say that the trauma has yet to really subside. )
Locating Edith Piaff was accomplished easily enough by looking under the dresser, where I found a no longer sedate, and now snapping sparrow wedging herself between the wall and the leg of the dresser. After much
But I'm trying to help you! Edith Piaff was now in her shoebox, and was none too happy about it. I filled the box with dried grass (like a nest!) from the backyard, which Edith Piaff promptly burrowed under to hide, ostrich style, or perhaps in an attempt to asphyxiate herself. I began to have the feeling that a cat would have been merciful at this point, and the reality that, yes, yet again, I had been Unable To Leave Well Enough Alone began to sink in fully.
I left Edith Piaff somewhat less distressed in her shoebox in the kitchen sink (the thought being that, were she to escape, she would not fall off of the counter and further injure herself), and went to bed, my head filled with the realization that in the morning, things would have to be figured out. I woke the next day, the first thought in my head the sparrow, and made my way to the kitchen. In the sink, Edith Piaff had indeed broken free of the shoebox (an admirable feat considering that she was most definitely not in the best of health) and glared at me somewhat apprehensively from the stainless basin. I gingerly picked her up and placed her back in the box, a fate to which she seemed somewhat resigned, all the while wondering just what it was that I would have to do next. Clearly my kitchen was not in her plans for the immediate future, nor was a complete convalescence, and now the best that I could do was undo the damage that I had done.
I decided that the humane thing, or, rather, the thing that would be easiest for the both of us, would be to return her to the wild; "the wild", of course being beneath my hydrangea bush that was sheltered from the sun and afforded some degree of protection from predators. I took her box outside, lifted her gently, and placed her beneath the bush. She looked at me in a way that could only have meant "What fresh hell is this?", as I gently moved her to what I felt was a "safer" spot. Our goodbyes were brief, as the neighbors were in their backyard gardening, and I really didn't want to get into explaining the mess that I'd put us both in. I emptied the grass from her shoebox, turned, and headed inside, trying as best as possible to shake things off and start my day.
When I returned home from work that evening, I went immediately to the backyard to check in on Edith Piaff. Not surprisingly, she was nowhere to be found, and I could only hope that she secreted herself further into the ramble where she could mend and return to the trees, trilling her sorrowful songs, and both of us the wiser for our encounter.
