Yesterday afternoon, getting out of the car, I spotted a whirlwind of activity in the dust/pinestraw beneath a large tree. At first I thought it was a bird taking a dust bath - it's been so hot and dry here . . . but as I approached, I realized it was a beautiful Blue Jay fledgling, flapping its wings furiously! I smiled, because as I got nearer, Mama Jay swooped down and nearly took my head off, letting me know that I should leave things alone and let her attend to her toddler learning to fly.
Two hours later, baby bird still in the same spot - didn't look good. This time, risking the wrath of Mama Jay, I moved close enough to see that the baby's legs seemed injured and/or unusable. Instead of hopping on the them, as fledglings do just before they take flight, he/she was frantically trying to escape by dragging him/herself on the ground with those baby wings, while the legs dragged painfully behind. But again, Mama Jay let me know I was not welcome, so I backed away.
Repeat several more times over the next 24 hours. My heart breaking at this poor baby bird, suseptible to neighbor cats and this blistering heat. But Mama (and Daddy) Jay seem to find my concern unacceptable. So, still, I just watch and wait.
But a phone call to the Alabama Wildlife Refuge Center was the least I could do, and as I patiently wait for their return call, I am reminded of a story told by Gloria Steinem about butting in where we don't belong. The story goes, "Gloria Steinem, the writer and leader in the feminist movement, once learned an important political lesson as a student on a geology field trip. "I took geology because I thought it was the least scientific of the sciences," she told an audience at Smith College.
"On a field trip, while everyone else was off looking at the meandering Connecticut River, I was paying no attention whatsoever. Instead, I had a found a giant, GIANT turtle that had climbed out of the river, crawled up a dirt road, and was in the mud on the embankment of another road, seemingly about to crawl up on it and get squashed by a car.
"So, being a good codependent with the world, I tugged and pushed and pulled until I managed to carry this huge, heavy, angry snapping turtle off the embankment and down the road.
"I was just putting it back into the river when my geology professor arrived and said, 'You know, that turtle probably spent a month crawling up that dirt road to lay its eggs in the mud by the side of the road, and you just put it back in the river.'
"Well, I felt terrible. But in later years, I realized that this was the most important political lesson I learned, one that cautioned me about the authoritarian impulse of both left and right.
It is my sincere hope that this is one of those situations that doesn't really need my intervention at all . . . but that the miracles of nature will give this one a happy ending. This beautiful baby deserves a happy ending.
