Sunday, June 13, 2010

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished


I was feeling a little under the weather this past Friday, and decided to take a rare sick day from work. Later in the day, I took my book out on the porch to read (check back later this week for my review of The Passage, by Justin Cronin) and noticed an abnormal amount of blue jay activity in the trees around my yard. I also noticed a certain fixation in my dogs' eyes on something outside the gate. A baby bluejay was sitting in my alley, looking a little perplexed. He wasn't injured, just fresh out of the nest, and hadn't quite gotten his wings under him.



I live in a neighborhood full of stray cats and evil children, so I decided the alley was not the best place for Junior. My yard reeks of dogs, and the neighborhood cats usually avoid it like the plague, so I hustled my dogs inside, grabbed a dishtowel, and went about herding Junior into my yard.



Junior did not at all appreciate being herded by a giant pink bird with one white, flapping wing. In fact, he seemed to believe I was going to eat him, and screamed his little tufty head off while I struggled to keep him out of the road. Momma Bird was convinced by his charades, and launched an accurate airstrike on the back of my head.



Ow.



Eventually, after nearly losing an eye in a second airstrike by Momma Bird, I managed to get Junior safely inside my fence. Above is a picture of him, giving me the hairy eyeball from under one of my patio chairs. After about half an hour, he managed to make it up into the trees, and his parents stopped shrieking at me, so I could get back to my book and nurse my wounded skull.



The bird theme continued through the day with the discovery of a robin's nest in our little dogwood tree. The eggs haven't yet hatched, but I'll post pics when they do.




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