Wild farewell

This story is one of many I could tell of songbirds.


Text: When I picked up a new group of orphaned baby songbirds from Operation Wildlife, a rehabilitation facility I volunteer for, I noticed a cardinal in the group. He had hardly any feathers and was scrawny, actually, he was measly looking. And, he stayed that way as others fluffed up, grew into their wildness, and flew off. Finally, after a couple of months and rigorous vitamin treatments, he began to look like what he was.

Still he showed no interest in leaving. Instead he fluttered around the screened front porch and would hitch a ride on any passing shoulder. He also diligently worked to get into the house at any opportunity. Why not? He was one of us as he saw it.

In the late fall, I let him go. Hesitant at first, he grudgingly flew off. Two hours later, he came back, perched as you see him here. Six hours later, a boy came to the door and opened his closed hands to reveal my cardinal, even brighter red because of the blood on his feathers. Cat? Sharp fence? He happily spent two weeks recuperating. Then, once again, I pushed him out the front porch door.

The next spring, a male cardinal flew in the front porch door, looked around a bit, and flew back to a brown female cardinal waiting for him. They built a nest in the bush next to the front window. Little chirps soon came. And, then one night, sheets of rain beat down and continued for hours. The next day, the nest was on the ground. The only evidence of its inhabitants, a few scattered bird feathers. When I walked in the house through the porch, there was a red cardinal on the stair railing. After looking at each other for a while, a silent farewell perhaps?, he flew off.