So my worthless cat (Gary) who failed to do anything about the invading Norwegian rats decided it would be fun to bring home a little present for us or maybe it was a toy for him - a baby bird. Anyway, it was late Friday night and amazingly the bird was unharmed, but it had few feathers and it looked really young. It was both extremely ugly and cute simultaneously with a pinch of pathetic. I thanked the cat for the gift by kicking him out of the house for the night. I placed the bird in a small box with a light nearby to keep him warm overnight and went to sleep.
The next morning, I was surprised the bird was still alive. The little bugger was not picky. Despite the fact that I was obviously not his mother, he immediately began peeping loudly and opening a mouth that appeared to be half the size of his body to beg for food. My first thought is that I should feed him cat meat and I don't mean cat food!
Not knowing what to feed this little beggar, I went online and read up on baby birds. There were some solid suggestions. The thing that really hit me hard was that THIS THING NEEDED TO BE FED EVERY HALF HOUR – ALL DAY LONG!!! Well, at least this was temporary. I would find a shelter later and drop off the little bugger.
For now it needed to be fed, so I followed the internet instructions made some baby bird food mush and shoved it down that deep gaping mouth. This went on all day long. Indeed it wanted to be fed at least every half hour. I would walk by its box 10 minutes after I fed it and it would act like it needed to be fed again. I was almost afraid the thing would pop! It was an eating machine and a pooping machine as well.
The following day I had to attend my nephew’s birthday party at Golf Land and had to bring the bird along. I had to bring food, water, extra newspaper for him to do his business on, hand wipes and a small trash bag. I had a toddler again, but the kids actually enjoyed seeing the little guy so it was not so bad.
This went on for a couple more days and it became a full time job, but for some reason I could not relinquish him to a shelter. During my Tuesday Broker Tour, I was driving around with the bird in the car so I could could feed it every half hour.
One time I had to meet clients at their home and of course I had to take him along in the car. I parked under a nice shady tree and went into my meeting. I found myself staring at clocks the whole time and my mind started racing.
Half hour had passed and IT needed to be fed. But I was taking a large listing in Menlo Park, I’m suppose to be an adult doing grown up things. What if the little guy kicked the bucket? I could just see him opening his mouth and nothing being shoved in it. Boy, would he be angry when I finally got back to the car? I came out an hour later and everything was fine after a good dose of complaining on his part and I drove around the corner and began the food stuffing process.
For such a little thing he had developed a big attitude, I attribute this to my lack of bird raising skills – I know nothing about proper bird discipline. This went on for THREE WEEKS. That’s how much time I spent grinding food and mixing mush, then if I needed to go somewhere I would need to pack bird things.
Towards the end of the three weeks, the bird and I began spending a little time doing some flying exercises out in my front yard and he was getting the hang of it. My friends began teasing me regarding whether I would flap my |
