A few weeks ago, I found a little sparrow in our garden. It was bald, apart from a few tufts of feather on his tail and wings. As Miguel always tried to rescue them, and we had a few over the past years, I felt like I should too do a good deed.
The problem as is with all little birds, they need a lot of attention and I wasn't so sure we would do the right thing. Normally they say to leave them alone, but this one obviously would die if not rescued and was covered by ants. Close call...
Also, so far our attempts to rescue little birds were unsuccesful. One died of hunger when we couldn't come home on time from a wedding. Another died of sleeping in a drafty place. But, confident we could do it this time, I decided to rescue the little one.
As far as the name, we each name all them Tio Pio, what kind of translates as Uncle Chirp. We stopped counting, however...
It is a lot of hassle, they need food every 1-2 hours. Luckily, it sleeps through the night, but as birds do...rise early.
It did cost me a lot of sleep, since I had it close to my bedside and could feed him with my eyes closed if necessary.
With Miguel's mom babysitting at times to give us a night off, we were relieved for not having to wake up at dawn after a night on the town.
Now, about 5 weeks later it has grown and with a few attempts to let him fly in the meantime, we felt yesterday that it was time to practise the big flight. We went outside for the last time, lured him out of the cage and off he went. Over the neighbour's wall into their garden. I haven't seen him since, but like any good 'parent' I left the cage outside with food and water if necessary.
I am not sad, it is not like when those others had died due to our lack of knowledge. Now, I think we did a good deed and helped another living creature to a second chance in life.
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