Flyaway (9 page)

The herring gull refused to eat.

I offered him canned cat food. I opened his beak, put in a wad of tuna, and closed his beak; he spat it out. I offered him two small freshly caught fish from our pond. I opened his beak, pushed the fish down his throat, then held him gently to give it time to settle. As soon as I let him go, he gave me a disgusted look and threw the fish up onto the floor. I sighed. He bit my hand.

The gull was housed in a medium-size crate in the extra bathroom. A towel covered the back of it, cutting off his view of Daisy and her mallard companion, the blue jays, and, housed in a separate reptarium, two Carolina wren fledglings. Each of them had provoked the gull's interest.

“Forget it,” I told him. “Live birds are not on your menu.”

Leaving him with an assortment of food items, I took a break so the kids, the nestling songbirds, and I could go shopping for new sneakers. If not for the obsessive records I kept in my red three-ring binder, I would have lost track of who I was lugging around in the wicker picnic basket; for although I kept insisting—more and more weakly—that I didn't do nestling songbirds, they kept coming in. I fed the babies, we drove to the shoe store; Skye fed the babies, we bought the shoes; Mac fed the babies, and we headed off to Burger King. This was when Burger King was still a culinary Mecca, before Mac downgraded it to a biannual event and Skye deemed it the most vile
place on earth. We sat in the car line, planned our meals, and watched as the gulls swirled above us.

“I think you should get the herring gull a Whopper with cheese,” said Mac.

I stopped. The gull had come from a Cortlandt parking lot, and we were in a Cortlandt parking lot surrounded by gulls. The lightbulb clicked on.

“Get him some fries, too,” added Skye.

When we returned home I stood in front of the gull's crate while the kids watched from the doorway. Pulling a french fry from the Burger King bag, I pushed it through the metal grate on the front of the crate, where it fell on top of the small mound of untouched food. Like a striking snake, the gull snatched up the fry, then stood gazing at us expectantly.

“Can I give him another one?” asked Skye, jumping up and down.

“Me, too!” said Mac. “See? Everybody likes Burger King.”

Later I ranted to John. “A gull won't eat fresh fish but he'll eat a greasy pile of chemicals! How much more can humans screw up the planet?”

“You should be grateful for that greasy pile of chemicals,” said John. “The gull and your children certainly are.”

Actually I
was
grateful, for the fast food jump-started the gull's appetite. He'd dig through the nutritious food in search of the lone french fry or the chunk of cheeseburger, and after scarfing it down, would resignedly move on to the defrosted frozen smelt and the vitamin-covered Nine Lives Ocean Whitefish Dinner. As Wendy predicted, I knew he was feeling better by his rapid increase in jaw power.

“Ouch!” I'd grimace, and leave the bathroom rubbing my hand. As it turned out, it was a gesture known well among rehabbers.

“What's the matter with your hand?” asked Joanne, getting out of her car. “Got a gull?”

Joanne was bringing me a fledgling gray catbird. “Cute little guy,” she said, “but his feathers are lousy. Woman kept him in a wire cage. Fed him bugs, though, so he should be okay.”

Wild birds cannot be released unless they are in perfect feather. Missing, frayed, or broken feathers mean the bird will not fly well enough to avoid predators or, in the case of raptors, catch their prey. Stress bars—the weak, light-colored areas that occur when the bird is sick or starving—will disappear if the bird regains his health and grows a new set of feathers, but until then they preclude the bird from being released. Waterproofing, which prevents the bird from becoming soaked and earthbound during bad weather, can be done only by the bird itself, but must be verified by the rehabilitator before release. Few things are more important to a bird than its feathers, and the little catbird's were a mess.

But except for the caging he had been well fed and cared for, which meant that soon he would go through a molt and grow a fine set of new feathers. With a bit of luck he could be released in September. I let him go in the flight
cage with the robins, finch, waxwing, and sparrow, learning quickly why many rehabbers have such a soft spot for catbirds.

Gray Catbird

Catbirds, along with mockingbirds and thrashers, actually belong to the Mimid family, known for their gift of mimicry. The repertoire of adult Mimids can include their own songs, calls of other birds, various local sounds, and in the case of catbirds, the hoarse mewing that gives them their name. In personality, catbirds are a bit like Corvids (crows and jays) but without the attitude. Both are incredibly busy. But while crows always seem determined to put one over on you, catbirds simply want to know what you're up to. The little fledgling followed me around the flight cage like a miniature Margaret Mead, studying my every move and occasionally peering quizzically up into my face. If I dropped a piece of string, he'd wait until I was safely out of range, then rush over, grab it in the middle, and twirl it around like a gymnast with a ribbon; when he tired of this routine he'd drag it laboriously up a tree to hook it on a high branch, where he could retrieve it later. He wasn't tame enough to land on my shoulder, but neither was he wild enough to cover up his naturally nosy behavior. Each morning he'd wait until I was busy cleaning the water dishes, then he'd quickly fly over and poke through my food carryall to see what I'd brought for breakfast.

“I don't know what it is,” I sighed to the kids. “I just love that little Romeo.”

“Romeo!” gasped Mac. “You named the catbird Romeo?”

“Awwwwwww!” said Skye happily. “Then let's keep him!”

“We can't,” I said. “He's a wild bird. It wouldn't be fair to keep him in a cage.”

“Awwwwwww,” the kids chorused, this time in a minor key.

As with the grackles I tried not to play with him, hoping he'd begin to look to other birds for companionship, but occasionally I'd toss a leaf or a pebble and he'd race over to investigate; if the object landed in the water dish, it would provoke a furious bout of bathing. Sometimes the kids and I would loiter outside the flight cage, watching as the catbird studied the behavior of his compan
ions. One day we watched as the house finch hopped up a large angled branch. Right behind him was Romeo, following intently but keeping a polite two hops distance. When the finch stopped, Romeo stopped; when the finch hopped on, so did Romeo. Finally the finch's patience ran out; he turned around and let out a loud
“a—a—a—a—a—a!”
Romeo, abashed, flew off.

A few days after Romeo arrived, Daisy's little mallard friend took a turn for the worse. In a prescient display of emotional self-protection the kids hadn't given him a name, saying they couldn't decide what to call him. For almost a week we had seen daily improvement. His falls had become less frequent, and he could steady himself by his food dish and eat by himself. He loved the water, where he could stay upright, change direction, and even swim beneath the surface. But that morning he suddenly arched backward, fell heavily, and was unable to push himself back to his feet. He'd fall to the side and spin; when helped to his feet he'd fall again as Daisy, subdued, watched from a corner. His falls became progressively more violent until at last I searched through my small box of wildlife medication and sedated him, cushioning him in my hands until the spasms that wracked his small body subsided. Maggie picked him up at the end of the day for what would be his final trip to the vet, and Daisy was alone once again.

“Will the mallard come back?” asked Skye after Maggie had driven away.

“I don't know, honey,” I said. “If the vet can help him, he'll be back.”

The subject didn't come up again.

I put another message on my electronic mailing list: “Desperately seeking wood duck(s).” Meanwhile Daisy became more self-sufficient, drowsing in her enclosure when she was by herself, springing into action when the kids tossed her mealworms, paddling around a rubber tub filled with duckweed that I gathered from a local pond. When we put her in the bathtub she'd dive beneath the surface, then rocket around the bottom at astounding speed, looking more like a seal than a duck, and I'd feel a twinge of regret for all the captive ducks with no access to their natural element.

The call came on a sunny Saturday morning a week later. I was planting
pachysandra in the protected area outside the front door while Daisy busily hunted for bugs, weaving in and out of my knees and slowing my progress considerably. Skye sat on the front step, reading spooky stories aloud, while Mac rode his bike up and down the driveway. Skye ran for the cordless phone and handed it to me.

“Suzie?” said a pleasant female voice. “My name is Hope Brynes. A friend of mine read your post on the e-mailing list. I have four baby wood ducks, just about your duck's age, and they're all doing well. If you want, I'd be happy to take yours in.”

I hung up the phone and relayed the message, trying to appear thrilled with the news. “But she can't go,” said Skye. “She's too little to leave us! She's not even three weeks old!”

“That's why she has to go,” said Mac. “Otherwise she won't know how to be a duck.”

Hope lives far north of me, but one of her volunteers met me in the parking lot of an Albany mall, a two-hour drive from my house. In the parking lot I transferred Daisy to her new carrier and busily explained the details of her care, trying to act professional and matter-of-fact. It worked, at least until I gave them all a final cheerful wave and watched them drive away.

When I pulled my car back into the garage John opened the door, came down the stairs, and peered into my miserable face. “Come on,” he said. “The kids have something to make you feel better.”

Mac and Skye were waiting in the living room with a boom box and a CD. “It's ‘Weird Al' Yankovic!” said Mac, holding up a CD cover showing the fuzzy-haired song satirist staring maniacally into the camera. We all sat down to the unmistakable starting chords of Huey Lewis and The News' 1980s hit, “I Want A New Drug.” However, in the capable hands of “Weird Al," the song had been transformed to “I Want a New Duck.”

We laughed until our sides ached, playing it over and over again. All we can do is offer these unlucky wild ones a second chance and then let them go, no matter where they're headed. Some are like Daisy, who would remain friendly to her human caretakers but bond with her new siblings so strongly that in the fall, they'd all take flight and disappear together. Others are like Daisy's little companion, whose eventual freedom meant liberation from a body that couldn't be fixed, despite our best efforts. As we all lay giggling on the living room floor I briefly wondered if the joy that Mac and Skye might find in the freedom of a newly released wild bird could ever make up for the sense of loss they'd feel as it flew away. And if the life I was giving them, with its constant themes of life and death, held too much sadness. At that moment Skye turned the volume up and she and Mac dissolved into fresh gales of laughter.

Perhaps, I thought, you just have to take your joy when it appears, even if it comes disguised as a “Weird Al” song.

“Ruth!” I said on the phone to my friend, the former rock star. “Remember that robin you brought me? He's all better. I'm going to release him.”

“Ah, that's terrific!” she said. “Where? You're not taking him back to that same field, are you? He'll just get his butt kicked all over again and then I'll find him and have to bring him back to you.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “Maybe he's had time to rethink his strategy. But I'll let him go here. If he really wants to go back for another round it's only a mile or so away. He has a little entourage of young robins, so if I release them all together maybe he'll decide to stick around.”

“That's cool,” said Ruth. “Go get him and put him on the phone and I'll sing ‘Free Bird.' You know, for inspiration.”

The kitchen's bay window looks out over a small strip of “lawn”—our generous term for a motley collection of weeds, moss, and the occasional struggling patch of actual grass—and on to a wide slope that rises into the woods. Dotted with huge, immovable rocks and planted with berry bushes and bird-friendly groundcover, the slope sports two bird feeders and a suet holder and is a busy place. From the kitchen table we can watch the interactions of black-capped chickadees and tufted titmice; downy and red-bellied woodpeckers; white-throated, song, and fox sparrows; white- and red-breasted nuthatches; mourning doves; Carolina and house wrens; and brown creepers. One day a
Cooper's hawk will storm into the yard, sending the songbirds diving for cover; a few days later we'll see the hawk race away into the woods, furiously pursued by a pack of crows.

The eastern phoebes return from their winter vacation on April 1, announcing their arrival from the shadbush just beginning to bud. By the end of April we're waiting for the rose-breasted grosbeaks, who arrive two days before the ruby-throated hummingbirds and are occasionally trailed by an indigo bunting or two. By May we struggle to keep the feeders filled for the various migrants who stop, fuel up for a few days, and continue on their way north. By the time the mountain laurel bursts into bloom the slate-colored juncos have long since headed north, only to return after most of the summer birds have followed the warm weather south. But the grand spectacle comes at the end of October, when one of us will hear a rattling, grating waterfall of sound that seems to descend and envelop the house; we all rush out to the deck to find the woods black with common grackles—hundreds and hundreds of them, their iridescent feathers shimmering in the light, their harsh voices filling the autumn air. When they see us they startle and lift off as one, the sound of their wings like a spinnaker filled with a sudden gust of wind.

Into this avian merry-go-round I wanted to introduce rehabilitated songbirds. My yard was a good place for soft releases: filled with other songbirds, access to food and cover, surrounded by woodland but with a sunny field a few hundred yards away. The kids and I built another bug pit near one of the feeders, and we were ready to go.

We released the robins early one sunny afternoon, filling the bug pit with earthworms and mealworms and then setting the crates nearby. “This is it!” I said to the kids.

“You're not going to cry, are you?” said Mac.

“Why would she cry?” asked Skye.

“Remember all those hawk releases we used to go to? All the grown-ups were crying.”

“Sometimes they're happy tears,” I said. “People who take care of birds work
so hard, and when everything turns out right they get all emotional. But even the people who haven't taken care of the birds sometimes get weepy because letting a bird go is symbolic, and people see themselves in the bird. Maybe something hurt you and knocked you down, and in spite of the odds you've gotten back up and are trying again. Maybe you're letting go of one part of your life and starting another. Maybe you're trying to let your hopes and dreams take flight.”

The kids stared at me. I wanted them to see how much more there was to bird rehabilitation than the day-to-day care, to appreciate why people put themselves through so much just so they could watch a healed bird fly away. I wanted them to know that when I walked into the flight cage I felt as if I were entering Skye's world, as if her kelpie had transformed my man-made building into a land filled with fairies and surrounded by magic, a lush green habitat home to the breathtaking beauty of a robin and the ephemeral trill of a waxwing. And I wanted them to know that my granted wish, like that of a fairy princess, was only temporary; before long, all those I had wished for would take to the sky and disappear.

Mac stared off into the distance; Skye gave me a searching look and took a deep breath.

“Can I have macaroni and cheese for dinner?” she asked.

When we opened the doors the adult robin rocketed up into a nearby hemlock; two of the fledglings followed him, another took cover under a juniper bush, and the last one surveyed the scene from a mountain laurel. I wondered if the young ones remembered freedom, having come into captivity as fledglings only several weeks earlier. I crouched by the bug pit, sifting worms through my fingers and demonstrating where the fast food was located, feeling as if I should mark the occasion by singing “Free Bird”—as Ruth had said, for inspiration.

“What are you singing?” asked Skye. “And why are you singing with that accent?”

“It's a Lynyrd Skynyrd song,” I said. “It's called…”

“Lynyrd Skynyrd!” said Mac. “Is this another one of those old guys from back when you were born?”

“Oh, never mind,” I said.

Later we released the song sparrow, who had been left in a box on the doorstep of a local animal hospital and eventually found her way to Joanne, and finally to me. My yard was a good release area for her, as it was frequented by other song sparrows, and I hoped she would find a new group.

I had taken the house finch back to Alan two days before, as the finch wasn't flying well and I was worried that the eye injury might have affected his vision.

“There's no conjunctivitis,” Alan had said. “He can see out of that eye, although I can't guarantee how well. His wing is locked up again, though.”

“All right.” I sighed. “I stopped doing the physical therapy because he was getting too stressed out. I can just catch and release him in the flight—he doesn't mind that as much.”

To anyone who didn't know him, Alan's face was pleasantly expressionless. But I could see the infinitesimal lift of the eyebrow, the almost imperceptible tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Quit it!” I said. “He's my first songbird and he's eating well and I don't think he's in any pain, so I'm not going to give up on him.”

“Good for you!” he said emphatically, then, conceding the battle, grinned and shook his head.

The day we released the robins was the day the flight-cage-go-round began. One might assume that unlike raptors, who tend to eat their flightmates if not paired correctly, songbirds belong to one big peaceable kingdom and can happily share a large space. Naturally, this is not the case; that would make the rehabber's life too easy.

Robins, who can be quite aggressive with each other—as ours had learned—are not aggressive with other species, which was why they could live in the same enclosure with the finch, the sparrow, the catbird, and the waxwing. But coming up and needing flight cage space were the six blue jays, two Carolina
wrens, and three purple finches (all currently residing in the extra bathroom), and a wood thrush and a downy woodpecker (coming from other rehabbers). Not to forget the grackles, who were behind flight door number one.

The wrens, finches, thrush, and woodpecker could all go in with the house finch, catbird, and waxwing, since all are gentle songbird species. But blue jays, who are in the crow family, are aggressive and can't be housed with songbirds; and neither can grackles, which are actually Icterids. Fox and field sparrows are gentle, but not house sparrows! Hairy and red-bellied woodpeckers are easygoing, but yellow-shafted flickers are killers! Catbirds are kind little birds but are in the same family as mockingbirds, who will beat up anything in sight! The wood thrush is related to the robin, but the robins just left!

“I have an idea,” said John. “Put the herring gull out there, and that'll take care of all of them.”

Had the jays and grackles been adults, I might have worried about putting them together. But they were all juveniles, they had no experience with other birds, and any territorial feelings the grackles might have about their adopted habitat would be offset by the fact that they were outnumbered by the jays.

The following morning we carried the jays, who were finally eating on their own, out to the flight cage and unzipped their reptarium. When they flew up to various perches the grackles froze, their eyes glued to the intruders, looking like two members of an undiscovered jungle tribe who had somehow stumbled on the cast of Blue Man Group. Although the jays were probably just as taken aback by the sight of the dark, yellow-eyed birds, they had no time for reflection; faced with over two hundred square feet of space they paused for a moment, then turned into kids on the last day of school. They flew sideways, ricocheted off of the sides of the flight, and played chicken with my head. They'd land near one of the grackles, then immediately spring off the perch and giddily flap away, as if they had taunted Death itself and lived to tell about it.

During the day I spotted several song sparrows weaving their way between the bushes on the slope, searching for insects and picking up the occasional seed; and I wished that I were capable of identifying the one I had just released
among a crowd of—to my undiscerning human eye—exact duplicates. I had seen all five robins just before dusk the previous evening, perching on various tree limbs, pulling bugs from the lawn and snatching mealworms from the bug pit. Today I had seen all four juveniles but not the adult. John and I sat on the deck at the end of the day holding glasses of wine, watching as the sun descended and the four young robins traversed the slope.

“I think the adult has gone home,” I said. “I hope he'll be all right.”

“Don't worry,” said John. “He'll be fine. He's a wild bird.”

I had released many birds during my years as a wildlife volunteer, but I had been part of a group effort; I had not been solely responsible for any of them. I had been positive and matter-of-fact about releasing the songbirds in front of the kids, but now, alone with John, my bravado began to splinter.

“But what about the fledglings?” I said. “Now they don't have anyone to show them the ropes. They're out there all alone. It's dangerous.”

“They have each other,” John insisted. “They're strong and healthy, and they know how to get food. They'll figure out the rest.”

“But what about the song sparrow? It's not her territory. She's in a brand-new place. What happens if….”

“You can't do this,” said John. “Once you release them, your job is done.”

I watched the birds, feeling my neck knotting in silent protest. I had given both the adult robin and the sparrow a second chance, but I would never know what they did with it. Would they live long and healthy lives? And what about the fledglings? Would they all reach adulthood? I had done with each of them what a rehabber is supposed to do: I brought them back, then I let them go. But how could I let them go after I'd let them go?

John held up his glass. “Congratulations on your songbird release.”

I tapped my glass against his. “Thanks,” I said, and hoped for the best.