Flyaway, page 10
I pointed the box uphill, tipped it over, and pulled the blanket away. The woodchuck bolted out, took a few strides, then made a U-turn and started galloping back down toward the road.
“%$@$&*!” I shouted. “You %@$#(# &%*#% &%*$#@!”
I raced after him until the ground gave way and I found myself sliding. The woodchuck looked to the side and found that the human he had spent most of the afternoon trying to get away from was mudsurfing beside him, wobbling dangerously and howling like a beagle. He slammed on the brakes just as I hit an exposed root; eventually I rolled to a stop just short of the road. I looked up groggily and watched as the woodchuck loped up the hill, paused for a brief moment, and disappeared into the woods.
Chapter 15
CLAWS
I looked into the cardboard box, where a beautiful young black-billed cuckoo lay bloodied and gasping for breath.
Once again the bird had ended up with me by default. The finder lived less than ten minutes away and had been given my number by the local Audubon sanctuary.
“Wait a minute,” I had interrupted. “How did they know I was doing this? I didn’t tell them.”
“Got me,” the man replied. “Somebody told them.”
I gave him three other numbers, but it was a Sunday afternoon and he had been unable to reach anyone.
“Look,” I said when he called me back. “The bird needs a certain kind of antibiotic, and I don’t have it.”
“Can you get it?” he asked. “If I can bring the bird to you, I’ll drive to wherever you want and pick up the medicine.”
It wasn’t that easy. The bird needed a wide-spectrum antibiotic sold through veterinary supply companies, not through regular drugstores. No local veterinary offices were open on Sunday. The closest twenty-four-hour animal emergency groups were at least an hour away, and they weren’t going to hand out drugs to a total stranger without a call from a licensed veterinarian. I called the four numbers I had given the finder, leaving the same desperate plea on each machine: “Please call me the second you get this message!”
The doorbell rang, and I opened it to find a middle-aged man and his teenaged son. I invited them in, told them to wait, carried the box into the bathroom, and shut the door; that way if the bird suddenly flew out when I opened the box, he couldn’t go far. I pulled back the lid and winced, then felt a hot surge of anger. Although I was relatively new to songbird rehabilitation, I was no stranger to the one-sided war between birds and outdoor cats.
Of all the ways human beings casually slaughter “protected” wildlife, letting domesticated cats outside is by far the most egregious. And the most easily shrugged off. People who wouldn’t dream of taking a shotgun and blasting a bird out of a tree let their cats outside, which accomplishes the exact same thing but in a slower and more horrifying way. “Don’t scream at these people and call them names,” I remembered a rehabber friend telling me. “There’s a chance for education here.”
I walked deliberately back into the living room. “Why do you let your cat go outside?” I asked.
“Cats,” he said. “We have six.”
“And they all go outside?” I said, more loudly than I meant to.
“We can’t keep them inside,” the man replied. “They’d tear up the screens.”
“So instead you let them go outside, where they tear up the birds.”
“Well,” he said philosophically. “It’s all part of nature.”
“Really!” I said. “Do you feed your cats?”
“Of course.”
“Then how is that a part of nature? If a wild animal doesn’t catch his own food, he starves to death. If a housecat doesn’t catch anything, it goes home and eats Little Friskies. Most cats don’t even eat what they kill.”
“True, but…”
“If a car hits your cat and it drags itself home, do you let nature take its course or do you take it to the vet?”
“She’s got you there, Dad,” said the son.
“The cats don’t always hurt the birds,” said the man. “Sometimes they just play with them and let them go.”
“Oh, my God,” I said, fighting the urge to lure the man into the driveway and run him over with my Jeep. “Cats’ mouths and claws are crawling with bacteria. All a cat needs to do is put one tiny little nick into a bird and it’s a dead bird, only it’ll take her two days to die. If it’s springtime, she’ll die and all the babies who are waiting for her in their nest will starve to death.”
“That bird we just gave you?” said the son. “One of our cats caught it and brought it into the kitchen. One cat had it and the others were trying to grab it away from him.”
After giving his son a quick look of irritation, the man unwillingly looked back at me, like a child standing in front of a principal.
“Can you save the bird?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know how badly she’s been hurt. I’m going to let her rest before I examine her, and meanwhile I’ll try to find some antibiotics.”
While the man and his son waited in the kitchen, I tried my last resort.
“Wendy?” I said into the phone. “I’m so sorry to call you at home, but…”
“Don’t be silly!” she said. “That’s why I gave you my number! What’s the trouble?”
A few minutes later I returned to the kitchen and handed the man an address.
“Do you know where that road is?” I asked. “About a mile from the turnoff you’ll see a yellow mailbox on the right. The antibiotics will be in there.”
“Great,” said the man. “We’ll be right back.”
At the door, the son hesitated. “Maybe I could talk to my mom,” he said. “But she doesn’t care about birds.”
I smiled at him. “It’s worth a try,” I said.
Songbird populations are plummeting. The hardy, opportunistic species that adapt well to human interference are holding their own, but the others are not so lucky. The two greatest threats to songbirds are habitat destruction and outdoor cats. According to the American Bird Conservancy (www.abcbirds.org), there are 90 million pet cats in the United States, and according to one poll, only 35 percent of them are kept exclusively indoors, even though 65 percent of people polled believe that keeping cats indoors is safer and healthier for the cat. During an eighteen-month period, a single cat roaming a wildlife experiment station killed over 1,600 birds and small mammals. A study in England showed that cats wearing bells killed more birds than cats without them; during a study in Kansas, a free-roaming declawed cat killed more birds than the cats with claws. And in addition to all the pet cats out there killing wildlife, there are between 60 and 100 million feral cats, which can have up to three litters of kittens per year. A study in a newsletter published by the California Academy of Sciences concluded that the combined population of outdoor cats kills more than 3 billion birds per year, and the study was conducted over ten years ago.
Those who profess to love the cats they let outside ignore the fact that the average life span of an indoor cat is fifteen to nineteen years, while the life span of cats allowed outside is two to three years. Outdoor cats fall prey to cars, animal attacks (including dogs, wildlife, and other cats), human abuse, poisoning, traps, and a host of diseases, including rabies. Those who “love” their cats might want to show it by keeping them inside, where they are safe and secure. And perhaps those who profess to “love” nature shouldn’t advertise their hypocrisy by allowing their pets to slaughter the dwindling wildlife populations around them.
I returned to the cardboard box and quietly opened the lid. The young cuckoo lay on her side, still and lifeless.
When the doorbell rang I took a deep breath, trying to control my rage and frustration. I opened the door, where the man and his son waited once again. “Here are the antibiotics,” said the man, handing me the box.
“Come in,” I said. “Can you wait a minute?”
I left them for a moment and returned holding the cuckoo. Cradling her gently, I lifted one wing to reveal a deep bloody gash in the delicate pearl gray of her side; following the line of her wing, I showed them where the bones were broken. I parted the soft brown feathers on her back, exposing two deep punctures, and on her leg, where skin and tendons were torn and mangled. I looked up; father and son were staring fixedly at the bird.
“Imagine if you were holding one of your cats the way I’m holding this bird,” I said, “and it was your neighbor’s dog who did it. What would you do?”
“I’d sue them,” blurted the man.
The boy pulled his eyes away from the cuckoo and looked at his father.
“Getting those antibiotics was a nice gesture,” I said. “But if you’re going to keep letting your cats out, it was meaningless and this bird died for nothing. If you’re trying to teach your son responsibility, then keep your cats inside. It will be difficult at first, but they’ll learn to deal with it.”
“Thank you,” the man mumbled, and turned to leave. I stood on the front steps as they got into their car. The boy closed his door and slumped against it, his face turned away. I watched as they drove slowly down the driveway, my heavy hopes for the future of a small group of songbirds all resting on the slender shoulders of a teenaged boy.
Chapter 16
SONGS OF JOY
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 companions. 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.
