Chapter 16
SONGS OF JOY
The herring gull refused to eat.
I offered him canned cat food. I opened his beak, put in a wad of tuna, and closed his beak; he spat it out. I offered him two small freshly caught fish from our pond. I opened his beak, pushed the fish down his throat, then held him gently to give it time to settle. As soon as I let him go, he gave me a disgusted look and threw the fish up onto the floor. I sighed. He bit my hand.
The gull was housed in a medium-size crate in the extra bathroom. A towel covered the back of it, cutting off his view of Daisy and her mallard companion, the blue jays, and, housed in a separate reptarium, two Carolina wren fledglings. Each of them had provoked the gull’s interest.
“Forget it,” I told him. “Live birds are not on your menu.”
Leaving him with an assortment of food items, I took a break so the kids, the nestling songbirds, and I could go shopping for new sneakers. If not for the obsessive records I kept in my red three-ring binder, I would have lost track of who I was lugging around in the wicker picnic basket; for although I kept insisting—more and more weakly—that I didn’t do nestling songbirds, they kept coming in. I fed the babies, we drove to the shoe store; Skye fed the babies, we bought the shoes; Mac fed the babies, and we headed off to Burger King. This was when Burger King was still a culinary Mecca, before Mac downgraded it to a biannual event and Skye deemed it the most vile place on earth. We sat in the car line, planned our meals, and watched as the gulls swirled above us.
“I think you should get the herring gull a Whopper with cheese,” said Mac.
I stopped. The gull had come from a Cortlandt parking lot, and we were in a Cortlandt parking lot surrounded by gulls. The lightbulb clicked on.
“Get him some fries, too,” added Skye.
When we returned home I stood in front of the gull’s crate while the kids watched from the doorway. Pulling a french fry from the Burger King bag, I pushed it through the metal grate on the front of the crate, where it fell on top of the small mound of untouched food. Like a striking snake, the gull snatched up the fry, then stood gazing at us expectantly.
“Can I give him another one?” asked Skye, jumping up and down.
“Me, too!” said Mac. “See? Everybody likes Burger King.”
Later I ranted to John. “A gull won’t eat fresh fish but he’ll eat a greasy pile of chemicals! How much more can humans screw up the planet?”
“You should be grateful for that greasy pile of chemicals,” said John. “The gull and your children certainly are.”
Actually I was grateful, for the fast food jump-started the gull’s appetite. He’d dig through the nutritious food in search of the lone french fry or the chunk of cheeseburger, and after scarfing it down, would resignedly move on to the defrosted frozen smelt and the vitamin-covered Nine Lives Ocean Whitefish Dinner. As Wendy predicted, I knew he was feeling better by his rapid increase in jaw power.
“Ouch!” I’d grimace, and leave the bathroom rubbing my hand. As it turned out, it was a gesture known well among rehabbers.
“What’s the matter with your hand?” asked Joanne, getting out of her car. “Got a gull?”
Joanne was bringing me a fledgling gray catbird. “Cute little guy,” she said, “but his feathers are lousy. Woman kept him in a wire cage. Fed him bugs, though, so he should be okay.”
Wild birds cannot be released unless they are in perfect feather. Missing, frayed, or broken feathers mean the bird will not fly well enough to avoid predators or, in the case of raptors, catch their prey. Stress bars—the weak, light-colored areas that occur when the bird is sick or starving—will disappear if the bird regains his health and grows a new set of feathers, but until then they preclude the bird from being released. Waterproofing, which prevents the bird from becoming soaked and earthbound during bad weather, can be done only by the bird itself, but must be verified by the rehabilitator before release. Few things are more important to a bird than its feathers, and the little catbird’s were a mess.
But except for the caging he had been well fed and cared for, which meant that soon he would go through a molt and grow a fine set of new feathers. With a bit of luck he could be released in September. I let him go in the flight cage with the robins, finch, waxwing, and sparrow, learning quickly why many rehabbers have such a soft spot for catbirds.
Catbirds, along with mockingbirds and thrashers, actually belong to the Mimid family, known for their gift of mimicry. The repertoire of adult Mimids can include their own songs, calls of other birds, various local sounds, and in the case of catbirds, the hoarse mewing that gives them their name. In personality, catbirds are a bit like Corvids (crows and jays) but without the attitude. Both are incredibly busy. But while crows always seem determined to put one over on you, catbirds simply want to know what you’re up to. The little fledgling followed me around the flight cage like a miniature Margaret Mead, studying my every move and occasionally peering quizzically up into my face. If I dropped a piece of string, he’d wait until I was safely out of range, then rush over, grab it in the middle, and twirl it around like a gymnast with a ribbon; when he tired of this routine he’d drag it laboriously up a tree to hook it on a high branch, where he could retrieve it later. He wasn’t tame enough to land on my shoulder, but neither was he wild enough to cover up his naturally nosy behavior. Each morning he’d wait until I was busy cleaning the water dishes, then he’d quickly fly over and poke through my food carryall to see what I’d brought for breakfast.
“I don’t know what it is,” I sighed to the kids. “I just love that little Romeo.”
“Romeo!” gasped Mac. “You named the catbird Romeo?”
“Awwwwwww!” said Skye happily. “Then let’s keep him!”
“We can’t,” I said. “He’s a wild bird. It wouldn’t be fair to keep him in a cage.”
“Awwwwwww,” the kids chorused, this time in a minor key.
As with the grackles I tried not to play with him, hoping he’d begin to look to other birds for companionship, but occasionally I’d toss a leaf or a pebble and he’d race over to investigate; if the object landed in the water dish, it would provoke a furious bout of bathing. Sometimes the kids and I would loiter outside the flight cage, watching as the catbird studied the behavior of his companions. One day we watched as the house finch hopped up a large angled branch. Right behind him was Romeo, following intently but keeping a polite two hops distance. When the finch stopped, Romeo stopped; when the finch hopped on, so did Romeo. Finally the finch’s patience ran out; he turned around and let out a loud “a—a—a—a—a—a!” Romeo, abashed, flew off.
A few days after Romeo arrived, Daisy’s little mallard friend took a turn for the worse. In a prescient display of emotional self-protection the kids hadn’t given him a name, saying they couldn’t decide what to call him. For almost a week we had seen daily improvement. His falls had become less frequent, and he could steady himself by his food dish and eat by himself. He loved the water, where he could stay upright, change direction, and even swim beneath the surface. But that morning he suddenly arched backward, fell heavily, and was unable to push himself back to his feet. He’d fall to the side and spin; when helped to his feet he’d fall again as Daisy, subdued, watched from a corner. His falls became progressively more violent until at last I searched through my small box of wildlife medication and sedated him, cushioning him in my hands until the spasms that wracked his small body subsided. Maggie picked him up at the end of the day for what would be his final trip to the vet, and Daisy was alone once again.
“Will the mallard come back?” asked Skye after Maggie had driven away.
“I don’t know, honey,” I said. “If the vet can help him, he’ll be back.”
The subject didn’t come up again.
I put another message on my electronic mailing list: “Desperately seeking wood duck(s).” Meanwhile Daisy became more self-sufficient, drowsing in her enclosure when she was by herself, springing into action when the kids tossed her mealworms, paddling around a rubber tub filled with duckweed that I gathered from a local pond. When we put her in the bathtub she’d dive beneath the surface, then rocket around the bottom at astounding speed, looking more like a seal than a duck, and I’d feel a twinge of regret for all the captive ducks with no access to their natural element.
The call came on a sunny Saturday morning a week later. I was planting pachysandra in the protected area outside the front door while Daisy busily hunted for bugs, weaving in and out of my knees and slowing my progress considerably. Skye sat on the front step, reading spooky stories aloud, while Mac rode his bike up and down the driveway. Skye ran for the cordless phone and handed it to me.
“Suzie?” said a pleasant female voice. “My name is Hope Brynes. A friend of mine read your post on the e-mailing list. I have four baby wood ducks, just about your duck’s age, and they’re all doing well. If you want, I’d be happy to take yours in.”
I hung up the phone and relayed the message, trying to appear thrilled with the news. “But she can’t go,” said Skye. “She’s too little to leave us! She’s not even three weeks old!”
“That’s why she has to go,” said Mac. “Otherwise she won’t know how to be a duck.”
Hope lives far north of me, but one of her volunteers met me in the parking lot of an Albany mall, a two-hour drive from my house. In the parking lot I transferred Daisy to her new carrier and busily explained the details of her care, trying to act professional and matter-of-fact. It worked, at least until I gave them all a final cheerful wave and watched them drive away.
When I pulled my car back into the garage John opened the door, came down the stairs, and peered into my miserable face. “Come on,” he said. “The kids have something to make you feel better.”
Mac and Skye were waiting in the living room with a boom box and a CD. “It’s ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic!” said Mac, holding up a CD cover showing the fuzzy-haired song satirist staring maniacally into the camera. We all sat down to the unmistakable starting chords of Huey Lewis and The News’ 1980s hit, “I Want A New Drug.” However, in the capable hands of “Weird Al," the song had been transformed to “I Want a New Duck.”
I want a new duck
One that won’t try to bite
One that won’t chew a hole in my socks
One that won’t quack all night
We laughed until our sides ached, playing it over and over again. All we can do is offer these unlucky wild ones a second chance and then let them go, no matter where they’re headed. Some are like Daisy, who would remain friendly to her human caretakers but bond with her new siblings so strongly that in the fall, they’d all take flight and disappear together. Others are like Daisy’s little companion, whose eventual freedom meant liberation from a body that couldn’t be fixed, despite our best efforts. As we all lay giggling on the living room floor I briefly wondered if the joy that Mac and Skye might find in the freedom of a newly released wild bird could ever make up for the sense of loss they’d feel as it flew away. And if the life I was giving them, with its constant themes of life and death, held too much sadness. At that moment Skye turned the volume up and she and Mac dissolved into fresh gales of laughter.
One that won’t drive me crazy
Waddling all around
One who’ll teach me how to swim
And help me not to drown
Perhaps, I thought, you just have to take your joy when it appears, even if it comes disguised as a “Weird Al” song.