Flyaway (31 page)

George became our hiking companion. Mac and Skye and I would tramp off through the woods, with Merlin galloping before us and George strafing us from behind. Instead of sauntering slowly through Blue Jay Town, looking for Harry and his jaunty descendants, we'd race through and try to avoid the screaming blue demons who would mob a single crow. The lone turkey vulture sunning himself at the top of a tree no longer enjoyed our silent observation; we'd give George noisy encouragement as he rocketed into the air, circling and cawing loudly at the intruder. We patrolled the edge of the pond, combed the forest floor for bugs, felt pangs of anxiety at the sight of a red-tailed hawk, and viewed the world from the eyes of a young and adventurous crow.

Near the end of August we were scheduled to go on a week's vacation.

“I can't go,” I said to John. “I can't leave George.”

“Balance,” said John. “A vacation will help you achieve the balance you're always talking about. George will be fine with Bill.”

Bill Whipp is a cheerful, world-traveled Wisconsin native who settled in the Hudson Valley and spends some of his retirement time house- and pet-sitting. He loves animals, both domestic and wild, and they love him back. He was intrigued by the idea of continuing to provide a base camp for our varied group of crows.

“Come over a few days before we leave and I'll try to introduce you to
George,” I said to Bill. “But I don't know what he'll do. He might not even come near you.”

“No problem,” said Bill, with his usual sunny optimism. “We'll get along eventually.”

And, of course, they did. Even though George would have nothing to do with strangers, once he was introduced to Bill he treated him like an old friend. Every few days I'd check in with Bill from our vacation spot and he'd regale me with tales of George and sightings of Gracie and Nacho, with assurances that dog and parrots were fine, and that everything was going according to plan.

“Mom, I had a dream,” said Skye, as we were sitting on the beach.

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“You know the Japanese maple in the front yard?” she asked. “I dreamed it was fall and the sun was shining on it and it was
so red
. And all over the tree were blue butterflies. They were electric blue and so bright it was like each one had a light inside it. There was the red tree and the electric blue butterflies, and they were so beautiful, and I thought to myself if I could just photograph it, it would be amazing.”

“Sweetie,” I said. “It's already amazing.”

When we returned George was nowhere to be found. “He was here an hour ago,” said Bill. “Then I saw him with another crow, I think it was Gracie, and they took off toward the field.”

I feigned nonchalance as I stood on the deck and searched the trees for a big glossy crow with a single white feather. I circled the house, calling his name, wondering if he and Gracie had headed for parts unknown. I walked up and down the driveway several times, then finally turned to see a large black bird flying straight toward me. “George!” I shouted, watching in amazement as he shot straight up into the sky and spiraled down like a corkscrew, spreading his wings a few feet from the ground and roller-coastering back upward. In return I leaped into the air and waved my arms like a madwoman, whooping and carrying on and wishing I were a gymnast so I could express my joy with
the earthbound equivalent of George's display. Finally he coasted down and landed on my shoulder, rumbling in his gravelly voice, and my vacation was complete.

I went out and bought a half a dozen new CDs, and once again the house hummed with music. “I guess I didn't notice it until now,” said John. “Mac has been the only one playing music around here lately.”

Toward the end of the summer George was spending longer periods away from us. He no longer slept in the birch tree by the kitchen window, but would vanish before dusk and reappear sometime in the morning. Although we spotted him with Gracie and with other crows more often, he continued to both entertain and bedevil us. After we installed an electric fence for Merlin, John circled the house, carefully placing the little white flags that marked the fence boundaries into the ground. John had no idea that George was right behind him, just as carefully pulling out each flag and tossing it away.

When the kids started school I settled into a fall routine. I took morning runs with George and Merlin, then sat on a log next to the pond's edge and watched as they explored. I began to consider rehabbing again. I wondered if I could make Flyaway, Inc. into a manageable operation, or if I were shortchanging my family by rehabbing at all; if it were possible for me to grow a thicker skin, or if I would always be an accident waiting to happen.

“People think I'm really tough,” I said to George, as he yanked at my shoelaces. “But as you may have noticed, I'm actually kind of unstable.”

The kids were getting older and I was spending more time in the car, ferrying them to and from playdates, sports events, and band practices. They needed me less in some ways, but more in others. Sometime in the not-too-distant future, my own fledglings would leave for college.

“If you're working alone, you have to specialize,” Wendi Schendel, caretaker of wood and sea ducks, had told me. “You can't be all things to all birds.”

Perhaps I could just take in raptors, as I had once planned. But what about the songbirds? What about the herons?

American Crow

George rocketed into the air and circled the pond, landed again, picked up a stone, and dropped it into the water. I reached down, picked up a stone, and tossed it in myself. How many times had I done that over the last five years?

I returned home, carried a notebook and pen out to the deck, and started making a list. George sat at the top of an old hemlock, preening his feathers. “No matter what,” I called to him, “I'll never turn down a crow.”

Late one fine September afternoon I found George perched on a birch limb about six feet off the ground. I sat down on the grass, waiting for him to land beside me. This time, though, was different; he stayed where he was, regarding me quietly. Several minutes drifted by, until I realized that he was about to leave for good and was saying good-bye. I whispered a silent plea.

Don't go.

I don't claim to be able to read the mind of a crow. I simply felt a terrible sense of impending loss, and in a moment of panic silently vowed to do anything if this one bird, out of the legions I had taken in, would give up his freedom and stay with me.

But I hadn't raised him to be a captive bird, and I couldn't ask him to be one. I sat still, trying to hide the turmoil I was feeling and let him go. Finally I rose. “I'll miss you, George,” I whispered.

“What's the matter?” said John, when I walked into the house.

I returned an hour later and George was gone. I never saw him again.

In my dream I hear a rush of wings.

Alone on a hill I am the center of a living kaleidoscope, for wherever I look there are birds in flight. Egrets in majestic slow motion, hummingbirds like the sparks from the tail of a comet. Swifts and kites, owls and sandpipers, green-winged teals and lazuli buntings. The circle breaks apart and flows past me like a shimmering wave, then returns and pulls me upward. And in that breathtaking moment I am no longer an observer, I am a part of them.

Roger Tory Peterson said, “First birds captivate you, then they enslave you.” All bird rehabilitators must dream of flight, of being accepted by the creatures who have enslaved us but who normally, wisely, would have nothing to do with us. Our reality is that we are rarely accepted; if we are given temporary grace, it is by a weak and wounded bird who will probably return to fearing us once it has recovered. But it is during those small, elusive moments when a frightened bird no longer panics at the sight of us that we sing in our chains, that we come close to our dreams of acceptance as we try to help it find its way back into the sky.

Although I have written only about birds, every rehabilitator—whether he or she cares for birds, mammals, or reptiles—has stories that would entertain and astonish an audience. All wild animals are complicated, remarkable creatures, and the odds against their survival are growing. They need help.

Wildlife rehabilitators are among the most generous, compassionate, hardworking people I know. Knowing how few of us we are, and driven by the odds
stacked against the creatures we care for, we tend to work until we drop or burn out. Please: find the rehabilitator or sanctuary nearest to you, or contact any of the rehabbers mentioned in this book, and write a check or offer your help. By law, those who work with wildlife cannot charge for their services, so everything—food, medicine, equipment, facilities, and the like—must be paid for out of the rehabber's pocket, or by donation or grant. Money, labor, blankets, crates, lumber, electronic equipment, transportation of injured wildlife—the list of needs is always endless. To find your local rehabilitator, contact your State Department of Environmental Conservation or Protection and ask for a list of rehabilitators or sanctuaries, or access the Web site of the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association (www.nwrawildlife.org) or International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council (www.iwrc-online.org).

No matter where you live, you can send a donation to Ward Stone, New York State Wildlife Pathologist, in Albany, New York. Ward is a lifelong champion of all wildlife. He gathers and catalogues the evidence against environmental poisons, and stands between the human community and any emerging zoonotic diseases, yet he never has enough money to do his work.

And finally, wildlife cannot exist if there is no place for them to live. The biggest threat to wildlife all over the world is habitat destruction. Support your local Land Trust, Open Space organization, or Audubon Society; support the strengthening of wetlands and steep-slopes protection laws; and the next time a local wild area is threatened by yet another greedy developer, join the battle against him.

 

They say you should take a mental snapshot and keep it tucked inside your mind, an image you can visualize when things go wrong and you need support. Despite the times I have felt alienated, dispirited, and disillusioned by the human race, my photo is of a crowd of people. People holding buckets of fish and coolers filled with raptor food, kids with plastic containers of bugs, friends
and family with checks made out to Flyaway, Inc. Veterinarians in lab coats, fellow rehabbers holding carriers. Those who put themselves in harm's way to help an injured wild creature, the ones who drove hours out of their way to deliver it. The woman who brought me an injured egret and gave me ten dollars she couldn't afford to give. The boy who raked leaves so he could donate his earnings to help a dove.

Standing in the middle are John, Mac, and Skye, with ready grins and the gift of understanding.

And flying above them all, with his pirate's eyes and his single pale feather, is George. He brought me back, then he let me go.

I wish to thank everyone who appeared in this book, all of whom have enriched my life in their own unique ways. I would also like to thank those who were a part of Flyaway, Inc., but whose stories remain untold, only because had I included every one, the result would have been too heavy to lift.

I wish to thank Ed Stokes for his long-distance friendship, and for his unwavering insistence that I write a book describing what wild birds are really like. Thanks to Sandy and Howard Hoffen and Karen Haskel, whose generous donations allowed me to avoid writing my yearly fund-raising newsletter and finish the second draft of the book instead. Thank you to Gail Winston, my editor at HarperCollins, for taking that enormous draft and shaping, smoothing, and whittling it into a better book, somehow finessing her way around my initial belief that cutting out any bird's story would desecrate its memory and drive a stake through my heart. Thanks to Sarah Whitman-Salkin and Shea O'Rourke, who patiently helped me through the details of publishing, to Leah Carlson-Stanisic for her elegant book design, and to Christine Van Bree for her lovely book jacket.

The beautiful illustrations by artist and fellow bird rehabilitator Laura Westlake were based, for the most part, on photographs of the actual birds who appeared in my stories. Although many artists can render a skillful depiction of a bird, Laura's drawings reflect her rehabber's understanding and appreciation of each bird's individual personality; for this, and for her friendship, I am very grateful.

I am indebted to so many of my compatriots, but special thanks to Betty Conley, Elaine Friedman, Melissa Gillmer, Nancy Goldmark, Jennifer Gordon, Pat Isaacs, Ellen Kalish, Karen LeCain, Kim Lennon, Cathy Malok, Lynn Miller, Pat Nichols, Toni O'Neil, Vicky Pecord, Lia Pignatelli, Connie Sale, Meredith Sampson, Michele Segerberg, Giselle Smisko, and Marc and Diane Winn, all of whom have provided me, through the years, with help, advice, and species expertise. My gratitude to Marge Gibson, unsurpassed storyteller and founder of the Raptor Education Group, who somehow found time to read my initial draft and give me her invaluable feedback. I would also like to thank the following veterinarians, who have so generously donated their skill, time, and compassion to relieve the suffering of injured wild birds: Dr. Richard Joseph, Dr. Andrew Major, Dr. Anthony Pilny, Dr. Martin Randell, Dr. S. J. Schimelman, and Dr. John A. Wilson.

My heartfelt appreciation to Susan Landstreet, my partner in Ladies' Dinners and nonprofit stress management, to Chris Mineo, for his Thanksgiving Day rescue, to Chris Pellettiere, who fell heart and soul for a young redtail and renewed my faith in the public, to Sheila Shuford, my fairy godmother and a bona fide Wise Woman, to Jim Tyrie, who is always willing to harbor a runaway (and her crows), and to Joellen Wheeler, my friend and lifeline, who keeps me laughing no matter what.

I wish to express my ongoing gratitude to my agent, Russell Galen, who read my initial collection of short stories and gave me such a detailed critique—as well as such inspiration and encouragement—that I eventually produced a book I never would have thought I could write.

And my deepest thanks to my family, who fill me with love and wonder and make me believe I can fly.