Time for a heartwarming
story to ease you into your weekend. So my son Gabriel calls me as I am getting
my gas station coffee on the way into work and tells me there is an injured
bird at his school that is flapping about in the dirt with what appears to be
an injured leg. He sends me a blurry picture of a dark brown bird that looks
vaguely like a grackle. I say that’s sad, but you should leave it be and let
nature take its course. He is displeased with my answer and tells me I should
come get it. I say I have a 7:30 am meeting so, no. Fast forward 30 minutes and
I get a text while I am in said meeting in which he informs me that he is now
carrying the injured bird in a cardboard box at school and that I should really
come get it. I make various annoyed noises and go get the bird.
I took the box
without looking inside and set it in the garage while I prepared our old
parakeet cage (RIP Kiwi) for its new tenant. I finally look in the box a bit
more carefully and am surprised to see a very exhausted looking brownish red
bird with a beautiful pattern of black and white feathers on its abdomen. This
is not a grackle. In fact, I had never even seen this bird in any of my
wanderings throughout the area, so I was very intrigued.
It is laying on its
side and breathing heavily as I put in the cage and I don’t have much hope it
will live long, but at least it can be comfortable. I put some water in the
cage along with some meal worms and one of Kiwi’s left-over seed sticks. It halfheartedly
pecks at my hand when I offer it some water and I figure that’s sort of a good
sign. I head back to work, not feeling very optimistic.
I had gotten
the name of a local vet who also does wild bird rehabilitation, so I email
her and, as I wait for a reply, start to investigate what kind of bird my son had found. With the help of my co-worker I find out that our feathery friend is
an Virginia rail. According to Wikipedia these chicken like marsh birds remain fairly common despite continuing
loss of habitat but are secretive by nature and more often heard than seen. Here’s a link to
the Virginia rail Cornell lab page https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Virginia_Rail/id
Eventually the
Virginia rail is sitting up (I had my daughter check on
it throughout the day) and is sleeping upright when I come home that evening. It
looks better since it is sitting up now and not laying on its side. I feel
slightly encouraged, but still unsure if it will make it through the night. The vet
office had gotten back to me and let me know that I could bring the bird in in
the morning.
In the morning
I am pleased to see the Virginia rail still sitting upright and looking at me
with alert eyes. The bird gets agitated when I reach in to try to offer it water,
so I just leave it be and cover the cage and get it into the car.
The bird is now
in the knowledgeable hands of the folks at Animal Kingdom Veterinary Hospital here
in Las Vegas which has a Licensed Wildlife Rehabilitator on staff. I hope to
hear from them in regard to the progress of this beautiful bird and am pleased
that my son insisted on helping another living thing. I am glad he didn’t give
up on this guy and hopefully this bird will be able to fully recover and make
it back home soon.
