And I Don't Even Like Birds!

Do you ever wonder how birds have managed to survive on our planet for so long? Especially when you consider the theory that they are descended from dinosaurs; and if so, have lived on this planet millions of years and conquered countless threats to their survival? Not just predators, but an ever changing environment with a merciless credo of "adapt or die"?

Unfortunately, I have to ponder this question at least once every year...usually in Springtime, when the idiot birds who repeatedly nest around my house force me to rescue their young from our dogs, or the pool, or sometimes the dogs AND the pool. I'm telling you, these are some dumb birds.

Now, maternal instinct among our feathered friends is supposed to be strong, isn't it? With the exception of the cuckoo bird, who lays her eggs in ANOTHER female's nest for HER to hatch and raise (seriously, you can't help but admire the GENIUS of THAT particular maneuver, can you?), birds are known to be good providers and caring, protective parents.

So, what's the deal with the dim bulb birds that live around HERE? Didn't they notice the big, deep hole of water in the back yard, and the two extremely large HUNTING DOGS who live here? Wouldn't you think that at least ONCE when they were building their nest they might have said to themselves, "Hey, this just might not be the best place to try and teach our young, helpless fledglings to fly! Let's keep looking before we unpack."

But no...they built their nest in our backyard, AGAIN, and their baby bird found it wasn't ready to fly and got stranded on the ground AGAIN. Only this time it was a lot worse. This time it was Wit, the puppy, who discovered the violently flapping baby (I guess baby bird missed the class about staying still around predators..no surprise there, what with such slackers for parents). And worse still, Dudley decided to join in the hunt.

I saw what was happening and dove into the fray. What followed next looked a whole lot like one of those pay per view wrestling matches on cable, only this was real and I didn't have anyone on my team I could tag.

Since Dudley is 78 pounds of "Oh Yes I Will!", and Wit is already 25 pounds of "Me, Too!", I didn't think baby bird and I had a prayer. I grabbed each dog by the collar, and feared it was going to take more than two hands and a whole lot of bad words to keep the baby bird from becoming today's Happy Meal.

I'm still not sure how it happened, but somehow I managed to get all three dogs in the house (Layla, for whatever reason, decided not to participate and remained neutral, kinda like Sweden). I scooped Baby Bird up with my bare hands and moved him to the other side of the fence.

Did I mention that I don't LIKE birds? Can you believe I picked this one up with my BARE HANDS? I thought about scooping him up in the dog water bucket, but, really he'd suffered enough for one day, don't you think?

Baby Bird showed his appreciation to me by NOT pecking me and NOT pooping in my hand. Gotta love a bird with manners.

The parents? Oh, there still looking for their offspring in the backyard, even though I moved him over 5 hours ago.

Told ya birds are stupid.