I Got the Bird Today

Pin It A Gray Flycatcher, to be exact.

You see my friend, Rich, found this little fellow abandoned inside the local Home Depot. Being too young to survive on his own, Rich brought him home and fed him for two days on meals of earthworm and a wild birdseed mash.

Since nobody is able to continually care for this little guy (who needs to be fed about every two hours) until he is old enough to fly, I volunteered for the task of driving him to the Southwest Wildlife Foundation up in Cedar City.

I won’t lie when I say that a part of me wanted to keep him, to raise him like a pet; maybe something like Christian, the lion. One day, we’d be separated and then – years later – be brought back together in a tear-filled reunion.



I imagined walking out the door on school mornings, and Night Terror would fly from my shoulder to the skies on buoyant winds, as I would drive the distance to work. He would race my car the three-mile distance and probably beat me every day.

I could almost envision the thrill of my fifth graders at our class pet – a wild bird that would fly down and land on their teacher’s shoulder during recesses and then launch itself again into the air when it was time for class to begin.

Then I changed my mind…I wouldn’t want to bring that many changes of shirts to work with me each day.