House sparrow baby

This morning we have sunshine and blue skies. Still very cold, of course, that isn’t going to change overnight, but we are back to spring light… all pale with a hint of gold smiling round the edges. And an eggshell. Ani found it while she was waiting for me to lock the door on our way down the lane.  Just a tiny scrap of eggshell, white and speckled. The sparrows have started early this year, it seems and I hope they are nested warm against the bitter cold of the past few days.

For the next couple of months there will probably be a curious singing to be heard now and then in the garden. Ani is a strange and frequently naughty creature. She objects, quite pointedly, to the wood pigeons and collared doves that see the garden as a larder and come for breakfast every day. They taunt her by sitting calmly on the roof while she bounces and barks like a monochrome Tigger on springs. The robins and, thrushes, finches and blue-tits get the same treatment. And the sparrows, a gregarious lot who come in small flocks make her look like a harassed mother rounding up a herd of small and naughty children.

The enemy

The sparrows nest in a colony in the ivy that covers the house next door and my garden is their playground, hunting ground and, it seems, the training area for babies. It is delightful to watch the young families playing on the deck and learning the ways of the world.

Every so often, though, the wind will take a baby bird that cannot yet fly and lift it from the nest. Ani sings a very particular song when she finds one in her garden. Perhaps it is something to do with the setter breeding as bird dogs, but her behaviour is unusual even for her.

Ani 911 to the rescue.. “It’s here, Mum”

It started last year… the previous year she had been just a new born herself. I, untrained, heard her singing in the garden and just chuckled at the noise at first. There is a fence between the lawn and the deck and madam has realised that if she throws her ball over it on purpose, I will eventually come outside to get it and might play. However, the noise went on for a while and I got up to go and see… she brought a pathetic little scrap of dead baby bird to me and whined softly, sitting there, obviously expecting me to do something. Ani is perhaps the bounciest dog you will meet, but she has an extraordinarily gentle side where baby things are concerned, human or otherwise.

A visitor

For the next few weeks there was a frequent recurrence of the strange, quiet summoning-song. Now, however, I didn’t ignore it. Sure enough, every time there was a baby sparrow in trouble beyond the fence. Most were ok, almost fully fledged with that odd scruffiness baby birds have. I would bring Ani in and watch, guarding against next door’s cat, as the parents came and the baby was looked after, or it summoned the courage to fly solo. One or two, after an hour or so, I took back to the colony and placed in the ivy.

The sentry

But there were a few that had obviously been blown from the nest far too early and for these I have an emergency rescue kit ready and waiting these days… a high sided old jug and a couple of tea towels, and always the dog food.

Luckily we have St Tiggywinkles wildlife rescue a few miles from home. On their advice some of these scraps were warmed, fed and replaced in the ivy. One was rushed to the centre to be revived and cared for in a very poorly state. Others have spent a little while with me before going on their way.

Lost baby

There is a part of me that knows Mother Nature can seem cruel and the weakest are culled sometimes by her hand, perhaps with greater compassion than we can see. But I too am a mother and cannot stand idly by when a small thing is in need. When they were younger the children brought me hurt birds to fix. Some died in my hands, some took flight and flew free. I will not forget the robin hit by a car, we think, with bloodied eyes, who quietly allowed me to clean him and nurse him back to health. When the time came to let him go he sat in my open hands and chirped before flying away, as if to tell me he knew he had been held in safety, for a little while. The memory brings a tearful smile.

All around us, every day we see small things where we make a choice to help or not… half the time in our fast paced society we barely notice them. It may be an odd tone in someone’s voice that asks, in spite of their words, that you listen and know they are hurting. It may be an old lady with a heavy bag, a sick neighbour, a homeless guy on the street… or a baby bird. I don’t think it matters if we get things right… sure the homeless guy might be begging for drug money and not homeless at all, but then, what you give might also be the difference between a hot meal and his hunger.

I think it matters most that we choose in consciousness, aware that we are making a choice to reach out or to ignore. The circumstances may be of far less importance than our own choice of awareness. The life that flutters in a baby sparrows feathers and makes our hearts beat is, after all, the same.