Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Little Bird

Shelley called me to the back sliding door tonight around 6:15pm. Baby, our wonderful two-year-old calico, had a hummingbird in her mouth.  I rushed to the door, bopped the cat in the noggin with my foot, and scooped up the little guy.  He was barely moving.

We made a little bed for him in a glass dealie, fetched him some sugar water, which we always have handy for our hummingbird feeders, and tried to think of what to do.

I got online and looked for hummingbird rescue centers (my sister called in the middle of it and suggested that). There were none in the San Antonio area. I called a 24hr "emergency" number of a local animal rescue organization at about 6:50pm. No one answered. I left a message.

At around 7:45pm Shelley suggested we bring our injured friend inside, after I read that that rescued hummingbirds should be kept somewhat warm. It was scheduled to get down to 58 tonight.

I was still surfing the internet, looking for someplace to help our bird. Then I saw Shelley at the sliding glass door, holding the glass dealie that held our bird...she was crying. "Oh no," I said....and rushed out. I held her and cried.

We cried and mourned the loss of a fellow being we'd only known for an hour and 45 minutes, more or less.

We buried our beautiful friend our herb garden. My eyes still hurt from crying. My heart still hurts. I've never cried over a hummingbird before.

We held him, comforted him, consoled him, fed him, gave him encouraging words (assuming he was bilingual), and thought he was coming around...only he wasn't. :-(

Right now, at 8:19pm, there's a mockingbird outside singing its ass off. I like to think that he/she is mourning the loss of a cousin.

Here are some pictures I took of him. 

















1 comment:

Deech said...

That is sad....