Bird Attack

Every year there are these birds (not sure which breed, but they are large) that nest and have babies in the trees in our yard (or the neighbors). These birds are very protective and even though our cats never go outside, the birds are aware of the cats in our house and try to intimidate them. The cats will sit at the back door and watch the world outside the glass. This past weekend, one of the birds (not sure if it is the male or female) was out back making all kinds of noise, trying to intimidate the cats. It's cute for awhile, but then the bird was getting on my nerves, so I went outside to shoo it away and threw something at it. I missed (as usual).....I'm not a great shot. All weekend the bird kept up the racket, as if the cats were going to get outside and into their nest.

When I came home from work early this past Wednesday, that damn bird was sitting on the electrical wire above our carport, squawking at me like I was one of the cats! It just rubbed me the wrong way and I picked up a rock (small one) and launched it at the bird, knocking it off the wire! It landed on top of the metal carport and flopped around up there. I instantly felt such remorse you can't even imagine! I only intended to scare it away, never thinking I would actually hit it! I immediately got out our ladder and climbed up to have a look at the bird. It was laying there on it's back, claws curled up like it was dead, only it's heart was beating a mile a minute and it wasn't dead!! I couldn't believe I had just done that! I climbed down the ladder and debated what to do. I couldn't reach the bird to get it down and even if I could, then what would I do? Pretty soon I could hear the bird moving around on the metal, which I thought was a good sign. I had probably just stunned it and it would be alright. It flew down from the top of the carport and landed on the chain-link fence. It stood there leaning to one side, clearly not alright, making feeble noises. In the meantime, it's mate was going crazy, flying around and squawking loudly over the situation. It was then that I first realized that I might have just destroyed a bird family. What if that bird that I had just injured was the mother? What would become of her babies? I felt so lousy about myself and I asked God to please care for the bird and make it better. I tried to get near the bird, but it wouldn't let me and flew off. A few hours later I saw it sitting on another wire above our backyard and it looked to be in much better shape. I was relieved to see that it appeared to be okay and that eased my conscience a little.

What I learned from this whole episode was to think before acting. Think about the consequences of your actions before taking action. All I wanted to do was scare away a bird, but in the process of doing that I might have killed the poor thing. Or worse yet, injured it to the point where it couldn't defend itself or take care of itself. I knew that the bird was nesting in our yard and had a family in one of our trees. But I didn't stop to think about that. I just wanted the noise to stop and acted before taking all things into consideration. Imagine my guilt if I had maimed the bird and it lay helpless in our yard, not able to fly away. I would have had to watch it suffer or kill it with a rock. What an awful choice I would have had to make. So, THINK! Think before doing something stupid like I did. I learned a valuable lesson that day. Thank you, God!