To Protect and Serve

To Protect and Serve – It’s For the Birds!

We recently were visiting my daughter-in-law’s parent’s farm. They have become good friends and we always visit and stay over when we are visiting our son and his wife. This farm raises lots of animals: alpaca, guinea hens, chickens, pigs, ducks, geese, and bees (I know they’re insects).  They grow lots of different vegetables and mushrooms that they sell to local markets, and make their own cider, mead and honey lager, to keep themselves busy. Their male alpaca are protected by 2 great pyrenees dogs and their female alpaca are protected by a guard llama.

On this particular visit we were going to see a Cirque du Soleil performance in Boston. We arrived the day before the performance. In the early afternoon before we were to leave for dinner a baby bluejay was discovered in the pen with the 2 pyrenees and alpaca. We assumed it fell from a tree overhead. Its parents and nest were not to be seen or heard. We were quick to get the fledgling out of the pen but then had to decide what to do with it. I held the fledging in my hand and attempted to comfort it. I tried using Reiki on it, but it is debatable whether or not that had any effect. The bluejay, who I named BJ, was placed on a branch of a nearby evergreen tree.

While holding the bird in one hand I tried to gather twigs and debris from the ground to try and build a jury-rigged nest in that tree to further protect it. I was somewhat successful in building a small version of a woven nest floor but could not get it to stay on the tree. Help came from my daughter-in-law’s father, John. He was able to sufficiently add to my creation and build it out so that it would securely stay on the tree. When I place BJ into the make-shift nest it seemed willing to stay there. Our next task was to try and feed it. John had lots of mealworms that he used to feed other animals on his farm. So I tried to get BJ to eat some. BJ did manage to get a few eaten, despite my inability to hold on to moving mealworms and get a bird to open its beak at the same time.

We hoped BJ would stay in the nest and be protected from predators. On returning home from dinner, BJ was still in the nest. John who gets up really early in the morning, found BJ in the nest the next morning. He said that BJ’s parents stopped by, hearing BJ’s call, and when they arrived BJ jumped to the ground and followed them into the woods, never to be seen by us again.

All was well and good in world of bird rescue. That was until the next day when another fledgling was found in the alpaca pen and too was rescued. This time we had the nest already built.

This bird, who I named JJ, must have been hungrier than BJ since it took to eating more readily. It was still difficult for me to hold on to the mealworms, but JJ managed to get a good chunk of food down before we had to leave for Cirque Du Soleil.

The difficulty in leaving JJ this time was that he didn’t want to stay in the nest and it began to rain. We were concerned about its safety and protection but had to leave. I suggested we create some sort of ground cover for JJ to remain under and John created a plastic shield to put JJ under on the ground. We left a number of mealworms on the ground with it to keep it company, at least until he was hungry again.

John returned from the performance before I could get back and when I returned he informed me that JJ had left his shelter and hopefully joined his sibling and parents somewhere in the wood.

John did some Internet searching while we were away and discovered that a lot of what we had tried were the correct moves to make.

To ensure and protect any other injured birds and their offspring that might find their way to John’s farm, he went into the woods and built a small wooden platform to use as a nesting area should one be needed again.

With all the dead animals both big and small that are seen constantly on the roads as I drive, it felt good to be on the rescue end of animal safety this time.  And they were so cute!