When I came home from work today, Aaron told me that he’d been startled by a THUMP on the air conditioner installed in the dining room window earlier that afternoon. Apparently, he’d looked out the window to see a not-quite-baby bird—say, an adolescent bird—sitting on top of the air conditioner, outside. It looked right at him, and wasn’t afraid. (Maybe not old enough to be afraid of people yet. It’ll learn.)
Anyway, his first instinct was to get the cat. 😀 Instead, he decided to get the camera and snap a digital pic of the birdie. Unfortunately, by the time he got back, the birdie was facing away from the window, and instead of turning back for its photo op, it flew away / jumped off.
Fast forward to this evening. Aaron was gone to work. I didn’t feel like doing anything on the computer (for once), and decided to go outside in the back yard and enjoy the brisk breeze from the impending rainstorm. And what did I see but—you guessed it—an adolescent bird sitting on the grass right by the back door, not five feet from the aforementioned air conditioner.
Time for me to run inside and get the camera.
When I came back out, the bird was still there, hungrily opening its beak and chirping at me. I snapped some not-so-good photos of it, getting mighty close—within a foot or so, if not closer, judging from the horrendous focus on some of the pics (even using the macro setting! I need a fancier digital camera).
With the photo op over, I sat back on my haunches and wondered what kind of food I could drop into a little birdie’s mouth. It looked mighty hungry, and although its mother was seeming to answer it from the nest several trees over, she certainly wasn’t coming to rescue him or anything. I don’t know if the little guy could even take off from the ground yet.
I, like every other good Girl Scout, know not to pick up baby birds. Still, though, I’m really expecting to find that little baby bird still sitting in the yard tomorrow, much worse off than it is today. *sigh*
Damn that Prime Directive, anyway.
