Flyaway (21 page)

“It's a mess,” said Alan. “Old enough to fledge but it's neurologic. Spinal damage. Emaciated. There's nothing I can do. I advised her to euthanize it, but she didn't want to hear that. She's on her way to you now.”

“Oh, damn it, Alan,” I said. “I have so many birds, and most of them come from her. She's driving me nuts.”

“No doubt,” said Alan.

When Tanya climbed out of her car, I was ready for her. “Tanya,” I said. “I cannot keep handling all the birds you bring me. There aren't enough hours in the day.”

“What am I supposed to do?” she replied.

“You live thirty minutes north of here,” I said. “There have to be other rehabbers closer to you! You've got me doing three counties' worth of birds!”

“There aren't enough bird rehabbers anywhere,” she said. “And when people call me, I can't just tell them no.”

“Then you're going to have to start taking some yourself,” I said, exasperated.

“Suzie,” she said in a why-must-I-state-the-obvious tone, “I have a full-time job, and you don't even work.”

I stopped, so thrown by her statement that I couldn't think of a response. “I ‘don't even work'?” I repeated.

“Of course, you do,” she said hurriedly, probably alarmed by my expression. “I mean you don't work nine to five.”

“Even with a full-time job,” I said, “you have way more time than I do!”

“Fine,” she said. “It's all right. I'll take the crow to work with me and leave him in the car. Or maybe my boyfriend can help me.”

“Alan called me,” I said. “He said the crow is a mess. Why didn't you let him euthanize him?”

“Because he deserves a chance,” she said, and turned to get into her car.

Let her go
, I thought. “Let me see him,” I said.

He was painfully thin, his feathers dry and tattered, feet clenched, legs curled and unmoving. His head nodded unsteadily, and his tongue lolled from his beak. His blue eyes were dull.

I set him up in my bathroom, away from the other birds. His nest was a heating pad in a wicker basket covered with a terry cloth towel, then topped with a layer of paper towel for easier cleaning. I tubed him with a tiny amount of a mixture designed for patients with impaired gastrointestinal function, then left him, hoping he would sleep.

I closed the door behind me. I could continue to feed him tiny amounts of nutrients and possibly put some weight on his wasted body, but I couldn't fix his brain or his spine. If he survived the next few days I could spend weeks feeding and providing him with physical therapy, but the odds were overwhelming that I would end up with a crow who couldn't walk, fly, or feed himself. He wasn't a handicapped human cared for by other humans; he was a flock bird with no flock, his brain damaged not by possibly repairable trauma but by genetics gone awry.

A skilled veterinarian had told me there was nothing he could do; there was nothing anyone could do. I tried to force myself to accept the obvious, to simply be grateful that I could make the little crow as comfortable as possible during the time he had left, but I was buffeted by waves of helpless frustration. Why? I wanted to shout.
Why can't I help him?

My logical self recognized my limits. But a small, hidden part of me took each hopeless case as a personal failure.

Impatiently pushed aside, then carefully tucked away.

Out in the yard our two young crows were enjoying the sunshine in the Crow Mahal, where they spent a few hours per day. They were healthy and active, had abandoned their nest in favor of perches, and were almost eating on their own. They were endlessly curious. Delighted by their ability to be awed by a pinecone, we had christened them Lo and Behold. Protected by Dad's square bottomless cage, they picked through the grass, splashed around in their water dish, and invented games to go with whatever I tossed inside.

Keeping a crow in a bare cage is the psychological equivalent of keeping a prisoner in an empty cell. Crows need sticks, leaves, small logs, molted feathers, pebbles, berries, flowers, weeds, roots, and seed pods, just for starters. Each one will be analyzed, fought over, thrown about, torn apart, smeared with food, and finally dropped into the water bowl. There are few creatures messier than crows, but then, there are few creatures who
enjoy
being messy more than crows.

I wished I could sit on the grass, lean against a tree, and just watch them play, but I had too much to do. I did another round of chores, then returned to the new crow. After I gave him a second small amount of tubing mixture I started to put him back in his nest, but stopped and instead held him quietly on my lap. Had he become agitated I would have put him back, but he settled down, leaning against me. He raised his head, beak agape, tongue flicking in and out. He glanced up and then his head dropped, shuddering from side to side.

I brushed the feathers on the side of his cheek with my fingers and followed them slowly to his throat, so lightly it was barely a touch. Continuing across to the other side, up to the ridge of bone above his eye, along the top of his skull, and down the nape of his neck. The tremors subsided until they were ripples on a quiet pond. His eyes closed.

Crows live in extended families. Young crows stay with their parents for three to five years and help feed their younger siblings. Even if a young crow moves away from its nuclear family it may return for occasional visits, and often it moves no farther than a few miles away. If a family member is on the ground, injured and unable to fly, the others will feed and care for it. Abandoning a fledgling is something a crow family would never do.

Unless the fledgling had brain damage and partial paralysis.

I cupped my hand around the little crow, hoping to provide some kind of comfort. Tomorrow I would bring him to Wendy, to do what his family had no choice but to do. Until then, I would keep him warm and fed and comfortable. Blinking back tears, I settled him in his nest. I didn't have time for grief; there were other birds who needed care.

Before I went to bed that night I quietly opened the bathroom door and found him sleeping, his small form cushioned and still. I dreamed of a flock of crows so enormous it approached our house like a summer storm, blackening the sky, all of them protectively encircling one small individual.

“You're flying,” I shouted to the crippled crow, as bright bolts of iridescence shot across the underside of his wings like heat lightning. “I can see you flying!”

In the morning I found him in the same position in which I had left him. “I'm sorry,” said John. “You were going to put him to sleep anyway, though, weren't you?”

“Yes,” I said, my voice breaking.

“I'll take the kids to camp,” he said. “You do whatever you have to do.”

I cleaned, I fed, I medicated. I decided Ponie's goose needed a bath and dragged a large plastic kiddie pool into the parrot's flight, filled it with the hose, and carried the goose in. She eyed the pool suspiciously for a few minutes, then poked her beak into the enticing water. She hopped in, rustled her feathers, and kicked her feet; she ducked her head under the water several times in a row and let the rivulets run down her neck. She spread and flapped her wings, then thrust her head under the water and dabbled. She shook herself, opened her
beak, and let out a long hiss, like a dame from the 1940s exhaling a luxuriant trail of smoke.

My goose reverie was interrupted by the ring of the telephone. “Hi,” said the voice. “It's Erin Smithies from Teatown. I hear you have crows. Would you be able to take a fledgling?”

“What's the matter with him?” I asked, my voice more harsh than I meant it to be.

“Nothing,” she said. “He's fine. Just a little thin. I came to work a few days ago and he was in a box on our doorstep. No note or anything. I feel so badly for him—I'm sure he has a family somewhere.”

Teatown Lake Reservation is an 834-acre nature preserve and education center. Their executive director is Wendy's husband, Fred Koontz, a biologist and biodiversity expert who has traveled the world while studying and working with wild animal populations. As a rule, local animal people are all connected. Everyone knows everything about everyone else. I know Fred and I know Erin, both of whom are professional, dedicated, and conscientious; one might think that if Erin said there was nothing wrong with the crow, I would believe that there was nothing wrong with the crow.

But as the day went by I became more and more gloomy, and by the time Erin pulled into the driveway I was sure the crow in her carrier was blind, deformed, and riddled with pox. I managed to return Erin's smile, though I kept glancing suspiciously at the carrier.

“Can I take a look at him before I put him outside?” I asked. “We can go in the garage.”

I put the garage door down and the light on, and Erin carefully removed the crow from the carrier.

He was beautiful.

“He's awfully easygoing,” she said. “Didn't take long to settle in—which is why I wanted to get him with other crows as fast as possible.”

I led her to the backyard, where Lo and Behold perched in the Crow Mahal. It could easily accommodate three young crows, so I placed the new crow
inside. All three assumed various positions, the two siblings on one side and the new crow on the other, all looking quite taken aback.

“Will you let me know how he does?” asked Erin. “He's such a nice crow.”

“I will,” I promised. “I'll release them here, so they can always come back for food. They'll be fine together.”

Later that afternoon we all gathered on the deck to watch them before I brought them inside for the night. They were like kids in a schoolyard, the bond between siblings unmistakable but easily stretched to include a playmate. We named the new crow Nacho, in honor of the fact that John, the kids, and I were actually going to a Mexican restaurant for dinner that night.

At that point in time my leaving the house for a night out was akin to climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. If I was overloaded with nestlings, it was like climbing K2. An overload of nestlings plus several critical-care adults equaled Mount Everest. If Tanya had just pulled in, it was like flying to the moon with no rocket.

But on this particular night I was determined to get out, and to get out on time. I had been feeling more and more guilty about my constant nestling-feeding schedule, as well as my inability to do anything fun and spontaneous with my family. I was bustling around, twenty minutes away from leaving the house, when the phone rang.

“Don't answer it!” I shouted, but not in time.

“It's Karen Parks,” said Skye. “You won't be long, will you?”

I took the phone with a sigh of relief. Karen lived a few miles away; John played pond hockey with her husband, Steve. If I know the person, I somehow reasoned, they can't have an injured bird for me.

“I'm sorry to bother you with this,” said Karen, “but a big red-tailed hawk got into our chicken run and killed one of our chickens, and I think she broke her wing. The females are the big ones, right? She's on the ground and she can't fly. Steve went out with a blanket and put her in a big cardboard box. Can I bring her to you?”

“Uhhhhh,” I said, “I, uh, um. Yeah—it's okay, bring her over. Can you come right away?”

I hung up the phone and found all three members of my family staring balefully at me.

“You're not…” John began.

“No, I'm not,” I said loudly. “Karen's going to drop off a redtail, I'll wrap her wing, put her in the crate in the garage, and she'll be fine until morning.”

“Promise?” said Mac.

“Promise,” I said.

Ten minutes later I carried the cardboard box into the garage, pulled on a pair of gloves, and opened the top. A very large redtail hissed, flipped over on her back, launched herself upward, and tried to grab me with two formidable sets of talons. I snatched at her legs and caught one; in the ensuing struggle it became apparent that there was nothing wrong with either her wings or her legs. I pinned her wings against my arm, she seized one of my gloves in a death grip; locked together we staggered over to the crate, where the question of who would let go first waited to be answered. Realizing it wasn't going to be her, I pushed her into the crate at the same time I pulled my hand out of the glove. For a moment she stood, angrily squeezing the empty glove. Finally she let it go and hopped up onto the perch, shaking her feathers in outrage.

The shadows created by the single ceiling light made it difficult to see into the crate. I could see the hawk's silhouette, though, standing square with wings tight against her body, and I could certainly feel the waves of fury she sent crashing into my face.

“Keep the glove,” I told her. “I'll see you in the morning.”

We ate guacamole and salsa, tacos and enchiladas. John and I drank margaritas and Mac and Skye ordered huge banana-and-ice-cream concoctions for dessert. The kids were giddy, John was jovial, and I felt as if I were playing hooky, barely able to recall when I had taken evenings like this for granted. I remembered when I announced that I would combine bird rehab with raising
young kids, and my rehabber friends had dissolved into laughter. Perhaps I had been a bit hasty in dismissing them.

The following morning I donned my gloves and reached into the redtail's carrier, determined to find the mysterious malady that had grounded what seemed to be a healthy hawk. I pulled her out, her eyes filled with rage and one set of her talons embedded in my glove, and stopped. How could I have missed it?

“Karen?” I said into the telephone.

“I'm so glad you called,” she said. “We've all been so worried about the hawk. Is she all right? Is her wing broken?”

“She's fine,” I said. “You know what a bird's crop is? It's where they store food until they can digest it. It's at the base of their throat. Hers is enormous. She couldn't fly because she's a big hog and ate too much chicken.”