Thursday, August 20, 2009

Sick Bird

Scrub jays nest in our neighborhood. In fact, I ate lunch in the back yard a few days ago to a continual "serenade" from one. But one of them - more than one? I can't tell them apart - doesn't seem to be well. My husband came home night before last and found him sitting on our front stoop. I'm not a bird vet, but he looked sick to me. I like taking photos of birds, though, and I had one posing for me, so I snapped a few shots.





He didn't seem very happy.













I got my long lens out and took a couple of closeups:






He looks ill, doesn't he?





























The next day, we saw either the same bird, or a different bird with the same problem, sitting on the woodpile in the back yard. I didn't take any other pictures, but I walked out to look at him, and he didn't look any better than this. It's a very unusual scrub jay that will let a human being walk to within 3 feet of him. I saw a (healthy) scrub jay fly off the woodpile when a squirrel jumped off the fence onto the pile, and got within 3 feet of him. This guy just sat and stared at me, breathing very fast.

I wondered if I should report it, but to whom? Who cares about scrub jays?

1 comment:

  1. I was driving down Fairmont Avenue a few years ago and a beautiful orange-brown squirrel was lying in the middle of the road. A car had run over his leg, and he was rolling around in agony. Cars were driving right over him as if he wasn't there. I wanted to "save" him but knew this to be a futile gesture. I stopped the car and made a motion to go over to him, but some teenage lout in a Mustang nearly ran me over pushing right by me. Just then another man from across the side of the street carried a piece of cardboard over, lifted the poor thing up and threw it onto the edge of the road. People are callous, I thought, they see a creature writhing in agony, but are too busy to bother, and just push on ahead. On the other hand, what can you do? Wild animals aren't pets, and nature is a cruel mistress. She kills wholesale with or without our destructive technologies. Definitely a futile notion on my part....

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