pen_grunt | Animals, birthday.

Oh hey, it's my birthday. :) I don't know why I'm excited about it. We have no plans, and I never expect presents from D (it's just not a thing we really do to any great extent and I'm not disappointed about that, though I'm always welcoming of surprises). But there it is, and there's somehow a current of excitement surrounding it.

Last night I found a bird. Here he is:

Say hi, Mr. Cheepers!
I was running outside and nearly stepped on him whilst on the road/at the curb. He didn't seem to be flying too well (certainly, when you can actually pick up a wild bird there's likely something wrong) so I took him home. He may have been brushed by a car or stunned by something. All wings/feet/etc. looked intact and proper, though.

At first, not knowing much about birds and observing his stunted flight, I thought he was someone's pet bird. Upon consulting with amateur ornithologists via facebook, I found out that it was a Ruby Crowned Kinglet. D and I were all hemming and hawing. . . do we keep him? Do we let him take his chances outside?

We set up a temporary "cage" for him (our old aquarium that is not water-tight any longer, with a modified mesh top for adequate air, lots of branches, newspaper on the bottom, a dish of water and fruit/nuts [we were out of bird food], a soft, warm thermal shirt for a nest and hiding, etc.) Then I got down to reading. It turns out this breed is very much wild (no chance of it being someone's pet) and they aren't really significantly good fliers under normal circumstances.

I watched him in the "cage" looking terrified and felt worse and worse about keeping him there. So we eventually did let him out in our back yard. His flight was VERY much improved, so hopefully he'll be alright.

But now we have the cage all set up nicely. And you know what would go really well in there? A lizard. So that's what we're going to get. (I voted for a rat, remembering my old pet rat Lily who was such a sweetheart, but D vetoed the idea with the good point that rats ARE more maintenance than lizards.)

This all hearkens back to my childhood and bringing home innumerable pets. Besides the compliment of farm cats/kittens and the family dog, I managed to accumulate (at different points): Freddie the african aquatic frog, a rat named Lily, Sally the tiger salamander (kept outside), Joseph the technicolor red-bellied snake, Diablo the anole lizard, Elmer and Fudd the "twin" baby mice, a toad named Samantha (kept outside), a leech in a jar that had baby leeches (very transparent, those little leeches)... and I'm sure there are many others that I'm forgetting at the moment (and again...kittens...). My mom, to her credit, took this all with a lot of grace and calm.

Maybe I'll never grow out of it. Then again, I did name the spider in our bathroom "Chuck Norris" (he's a ginger), so there may be little hope of that.