Back about a month ago when we had a break in the rain for an hour (that’s sarcasm, but just barely since it has rained almost every day over the past two months) I was deep in contemplation on my knees in the dahlia garden. I was probably tying them up or situating the drainage underneath them, lost in thought when a sound brought me to consciousness. “Skree! Skree!” the sound went and I thought as I rose from the fog, “I should lift my head occasionally and notice the birds,” as the “Skree” was clearly a bird and one nearby at that. “Skree! Skree!” it went again a little more insistent and I was roused by the urgency of the cry to stand up and look around.
blueberries not quite ripe
As I have been reporting we were very excited about the progress of the blueberry bush and all of the berries slowly ripening. I had made a armature for the bird netting and draped said netting over the armature, but the damn birds are very clever and persistent or perhaps just hungry or all of the above and had managed on more than one occasion to find a way inside the net and eat the few berries that were ripe. Julia began reporting that every night after dinner as she walked through the wet grass with the dogs to the creek she would have to lift the net and free one or more birds who were clearly getting more of the blueberries than we were. Every morning I’d come to check on their ripeness and find fewer, confirming the bird invasion.
Last night, one of two nights in the last month or more wherein it was NOT raining, I was doing the routine walk to the creek with the dogs and came around the garden to find two damn birds inside the net. I lifted one side of the net to give them a quick way out, partly because I didn’t want them to eat the berries and partly because that net is a real challenge to humans and birds. They flapped and carried on as if trapped and the dogs, especially Buster, raced to the bush and barked like a maniac at the poor birds who were trying to free themselves of the net. They usually find a way out just as easily as they got in, which is not very. There was lots of flapping and fluttering and a bit more “Skree!” thrown in for good measure.
Given that I had lifted the net on one side, not easy because it is almost invisible and tends to snag on anything not rounded such as the chicken wire and my garden hat and the rings on my fingers, I figured the birds would eventually figure there was freedom awaiting them. One was super close to finding the opening as I led the dogs away from the fluttering and down to the creek. We dawdled down there for quite some time in the thick heat and humidity and after a while I grew overwhelmed at the amount of work that needs to be done but hasn’t because: A) it is raining all the time, 2) I have a new job (that I love!) and C) when a free moment arose I went out of town to love on my cousin(s). Seriously the amount of weed wacking and mowing is major. This is why we are consistent in our care so that it doesn’t get out of hand like this, but what can you do? Julia’s niece and her friend Bianca came for a few days and they didn’t even notice that the borders were overgrown or that the island needed mowing. They thought they were in Paradise.
Niece Katie and her roommate Bianca
As I came up the hill, “Skree! Skree!” there was still one bird in the net flapping midway up the enclosure, evident even from a distance that it was caught in the net. I ran toward it and verified its predicament. It was almost upside down flapping and struggling. I reached inside the net and grabbed the bird to keep it from breaking its leg. Upon closer inspection its little tiny toothpick sized leg was wrapped in the net several times over, its tiny needleish claws bound by the net. Damnit. By this time the dogs had caught up with me and Buster commenced to bark and race around the bush, not helping anything. I tried with my hands to free the little leg, but it was too difficult, given my feeble eyesightand the confusion of netting. I let the bird go and ran to the tool shed and grabbed the scissors and ran back to the bird. I reached in again and grabbed the bird because upside down flapping was getting him nowhere and only compounding the problem. I knelt there and carefully cut the net around the bird’s leg. Once done, and that was no small feat given the net is invisible, I pulled the bird out of the enclosure. The amount of net that remained on the leg was unacceptable. In my mind’s eye I saw that scene from the documentary Winged Migration where the duck or whatever it is flies with a snarl of plastic around its foot for thousands of miles. Well not on my watch would this little bird be burdened with this quarter-sized snagfest. The little thing was panicking for sure, but it was out of the certain hell the enclosure would have become if I had done nothing. This was not a factor of “letting nature take its course” that I was willing to walk away from.
the pitiful yeild
I held the bird in one hand and drug an upside down pickle bucket into the shade so I could have a place to sit. You don’t want to operate on a panicked little bird in the hot afternoon sun, or at least I didn’t, and since my heart was beating rapidly as well, (though I was calm, as if a truck had fallen on my child and the only rational solution was to lift the truck by myself) the cool of the shade seemed prudent. So with Buster nosing and yapping occasionally and Mazie sitting patiently curious, I held the little bird a reasonable distance from my face and started to cut the mess of net still wound around its leg. Snip. Snip. Examine. Snip. It was in between the examination and the snipping that I straightened my arm a bit and looked at the bird in its one bulging terrified eye. I had yet to really look at the whole bird, only the leg, only the situation, only the solution ticking systematically in my mind. It turned its head to look at me as well. Its little beak was open but issued no sound, its ability to “Scree” evaporating the moment I wrapped my hand around its body. I could feel the heart’s crazy beating between my fingers. I went quickly back to the snipping. Just about then the bird released itself on to my wrist: blueberry filled poo drooled down my arm to the elbow. Frankly I was surprised it took the bird that long to shit itself, a bird of great courage and composure given the giant human hand and the hideous net. I continued to make a few more snips and then wiggled the remaining net free from the leg and immediately opened my hand. No kiss on the forehead, no words of praise or good wishes, just opening the hand to freedom. The bird flew away.
p.s. I can buy blueberries for $1.99 a pint at the grocery store. We dismantled the enclosure.
the gate opens inward 