Love Bird

[Doc Tinker]

Several years ago I hit a house finch, who had flown into the path of my van, while I was on a errand for work. I saw in the mirror that the bird was still alive, flapping his wings around in a circle on the roadway. I hated to just leave him there in the road, to be squished by a car, especially if he wasn't hurt enough that he would die. So I backed up, grabbed him and took him back to the shop. I put him in a box, with some water and waited to see if he would recover. About an hour later, I saw him fly out of the box and through the open door of the garage.



The next day, I noticed a couple of the same kind of bird fly into the garage and into an opening where the steel girders rested in the block wall. By the end of the day, they had a nice nest built. Soon there was a family. I left the covers for the exhaust ports, in the overhead doors, open so the birds would be able to come and go at will.



In a couple of years those birds and their nests multiplied until I had to finally evict them, since they were making a mess of my tool box. Seems that the later generations were less tidy, or maybe they didn't care as much as the early generations.



Is it possible that the bird I hit appreciated being looked out for, after his accident, and decided to make his home nearby?



Doc

 

[Archive]

I think the moral of this story is that if you are too nice to someone, they end up crapping all over you. In this case, it was your tools!



I believe every living thing is capable of emotion... thats why I always go for the clean kill.

 

[EMDDIESEL]

Pretty cool thought. I rescued a duck from the road awhile back but have yet to see any ducks return to my house. But i suppose its possible.

 

[The patriot]

EMD if you would STOP siting on the front lawn in camo with a shotgun, they might come back.

Just a thought.

Eric

 

[Andy Perreault]

What can you do, you know?

I felt bad a few weeks ago, because I nailed a Red Shafted Flicker (a type of woodpecker) sitting on Hwy 2 on Stevens Pass. I figured he'd fly away as I got closer at 60 mph, but he just stood there. By the time he started to fly away, it was too late. I heard a thump and saw feathers in my rearview mirror. Call me a wuss, but I really felt bad. They're beautiful birds. My niece was riding with me, and she saw it happen, too. I felt like a jerk for not slowing down.

Well, a few nights after that, coming home from work on the dirt road I live on, I stopped to allow a frog to cross in front of me. I actually backed up so I could keep an eye on him. Hopefully that good deed made up for killing the bird.

Andy

 

[illflem]

Andy don't feel bad. If you had a wood house in Eastern WA you would hate flickers. They wake you up at 4:30 pounding on your house, once they make a hole the starlings move in and kick the flicker out forceing the flicker to make a new hole, it goes on and on. I wish you had hit a whole flock of them.

 

[Archive]

I was with a friend a few years ago... in an old Chev impala. We had been out grouse hunting earlier, and came home empty handed.

Saw a pheasant on the road, he stepped on the gas, muttering something about this one ain't getting away. I would have never believed he got it, but the thump was unmistakable.



So was the damage to his grill. Don't try this at home.

 

[Steve M]

Of course animals have emotions. Fear, anger, contentment, jealousy, the desire to reproduce, the desire to play, and so on can be seen in most animals. Even a snake will show fear until he realizes you're not going to hurt him. Then he settles right down in your hands. A clear showing of a change of emotions. The snake handler shows the same change and doesn't see it as such. I don't like to see any animal suffer or live miserably. Whether hunting or getting rid of pests, I don't like to prolong the death of anything. With one exception. I beleave a cockroach doesn't have any emotion and his sole purpose is to make my skin crawl. Therefore he dies on sight.