Today I woke up to see an injured bird in my back yard. The Flicker had collided with my neighbour’s patio door a few days ago and got stuck between their deck and the siding. They slipped him food and water hoping he would come out on his own, but finally had to remove a plank to free him yesterday. My neighbour gently put him into the back bushes and kept an eye on him till it got dark.
When I saw him out there this morning, he was lying on his back and his head was moving slightly–I figured he was dying. It was a sad situation because I felt at a loss–would moving him be worse? I certainly didn’t want to kill him.
When I got back from church I was expecting to bury him somewhere in the back with the neighbours, but, much to my surprise, the bird was moving a lot more–and, when I got close up, he started cackling at me. So, I called Animal Control, who told me about a place not far from here that rescues wild animals and birds.
I gently placed him in a basket and off I went…

They told me they would do their best to feed and watch him for the next while and test to see if he has a viral infection. If there is anything they can do to save him, they will–they have about an 80% survival rate, which is pretty cool.
If he gets better, I can pick him up and bring him home to our backyard bushes (they like to release the animals into their natural habitat).
So, now it’s just a matter of waiting and checking in every day. I sure am rooting for the little fella, he’s such a trooper… but, I’ll keep you posted on that.
Something that struck me on my way there and back was all the construction going on along the highway. If you live in Northern Ontario you know you can only drive so far in any direction before you have to stop and wait for a line-up because something’s being fixed. It’s just a natural part of the journey.

Fixing things up takes time and is often an inconvenience. No one likes to wait, but, at least there is some consolation in knowing we’ll be better off because of it.
That made me think about the setbacks we often have to go through for each other. There are always those areas ‘under construction’ of sorts, and, well… sometimes we just have to slow down and proceed with caution if we happen to get near one.
Everyone’s better off in the long run, once the work has been done, though. Still, maybe it would help a little if we all wore signs like this across our backs:

or, at least apologized for some of the detours along the way.