Urban Wildlife at the Preschooler's Eye Level
We would like to extend a warm welcome to guest blogger Tara Lindis! Tara is a former English Professor, and now a mom and writer. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children. Visit her at her blog, Occassional Observations.
On a recent outing to the library, my three-year old son, Fyo noticed a pigeon on the ground and tucked into the corner of a stone wall along the sidewalk. It occurred to him, that while pigeons often frequent the parks and playgrounds we visit, we had never seen a pigeon sitting on the ground. The pigeon's wing was slightly askew. To me, the pigeon looked injured, though it didn't seem in pain. Still, with my son by my side and his 10 month sister in her carrier, I couldn't leave the injured bird there.
If I had been by myself, I wouldn't have seen the pigeon, and I most likely would have kept walking. But traveling with someone who is a bit closer to the ground shifts your perspective. I've learned to see things differently when I'm with my son. Most days this means I notice more sticks for my son's collection and I keep an eye out for pretty rocks that fit in his pockets. I have started to notice the wider variety of birds that fly through the park, the way that squirrels jump and look as if they are flying, and the best spots to find helicopter seeds. But becoming a parent also has shifted my perspective of my actions, because I, of all people, became a parent and role model; what I do in situations communicates volumes to my children about my values, and how to treat people and how we should act towards other creatures.
Fyo decided the pigeon's wing was broken and we needed to get him a new one. So I searched through our library book bag and the bag from other recent errands and found a plastic shopping bag that I could use to pick the pigeon up and carry him to the vet. I bent down and as gently as I could, picked up the pigeon, so that we could take it to the vet. Except the vet around the corner from where we found the bird didn't take pigeons. I quickly learned that in New York City, injured wildlife goes to an Animal Care Clinic or a vet who especially focuses on injured urban wildlife. The Animal Care Clinics closest to us were easily over an hour away by subway, while the Wild Bird Fund's clinic, on the Upper West Side, was an easy 45 minute subway ride away. We stopped at home to drop off the library books that we didn't get to the library to return, and to pick up extra snacks.
At home, my husband stared down at the pigeon in the bag. He questioned the field trip. It was late in the day, approaching the dinner hour (or what we call the Witching Hour in our house, the hour when fatigue clashes with low blood sugars). He wondered about a bird that didn't flinch when I went to pick it up. He pointed out that pigeons weren't exactly on the endangered species list. He suggested that if the bird was sick or broken, maybe the kindest thing to do was to drown it in a bucket or see if it survived the night.
When he said this, I wanted to cry. Surely, I thought, with a world full of so much judgment and cruelty, we could show a tad of compassion to a pigeon?
No, I said. There's a place we can take it, so we're going to take it.
Okay, he said. He hadn't realized there was a place to take found injured pigeons in the city. Before I had found one, I hadn't either.
Besides, I pointed out, at this point, it was about our children learning that when something small and vulnerable is hurt, it needs compassion and to be taken care of, not left outside to die or drowned in a bucket.
On the way to the train, my son and I stopped often to make sure the pigeon was okay. We peered inside the brown handled paper bag that now held the pigeon; every time the pigeon looked up, and blinked, seemingly content in its chariot-of-sorts. On the train, both children fell asleep, my son in his stroller and my daughter in her carrier. I woke my son up at the train station on the Upper West Side.
At the Wild Bird Fund, my son was still groggy. The office was full of kittens available for adoption, and dogs attached to leashes and owners. In his half aware stare, he pointed out the kittens and dogs. The vet took the pigeon while I filled out a form with my name, address, phone number, and where I found the bird. She checked the bird's wings and legs; nothing was broken. She suspected the pigeon had suffered nerve damage of sorts, from either a virus or lead poisoning. They would try to rehabilitate the bird; if they succeeded, she would call me to come pick the pigeon up, so we could return the pigeon to where we found it. It was here I learned that pigeons mate for life, and both parents care for their young before they leave the nest. While pigeons have their families, they also commonly live in flocks. The vet assured me that if the pigeon didn't make it back to its family, it would be missed.
I told my son what the vet told me. I introduced him to the vet, and told him she was going to try to make the pigeon better. The vet was very sweet and told my son that he had done a good thing by bringing the pigeon in to get help, and maybe in a week or two, we could return the pigeon to its home.
Later in the week, when we again walked to the library along Washington Avenue, I wondered if I could find the exact spot of where we found the pigeon. So many of the brownstones and apartment buildings have similar-looking stone walls; how would I know which one was the one closest to the pigeon's nest?
Not to worry. Fyo remembered the exact spot and pointed it out. Sure enough, as I stood there looking down to where he pointed and back up again, I remembered seeing the specific houses along that part of the street. He asked when we would get to come back with the pigeon. I said I didn't know.
A week later, the Wild Bird Fund called. Our pigeon, named Tara after me simply because it was my name on the form, was paralyzed on the left side due to lead poisoning. While she was eating and resting well, her left side paralysis made it impossible for her to move, fly, even escape her own feces. She couldn't be returned to her home in such a state. They recommended that she be euthanized, and were just waiting for my permission. I sadly gave it. They did reassure me that we had done the right thing, that if we had left Tara the Pigeon on the sidewalk, she would have starved, been eaten by dogs, or harassed by bullying school children. Thanks to my son seeing her tucked in the corner of the sidewalk, she received a much kinder fate.
On our most recent trip to the library, Fyo again pointed out where we found our pigeon. I stopped the stroller and told him that the vets were unable to save her, but they did their best in making her comfortable and treating her. He seemed okay with this for the moment, yet I was surprised how sad it left me.
But this experience also left me with more respect for pigeons and the urban wildlife around us, and I think it did for my son too. At the very least, it is the beginning of his developing awareness of life we don't usually see in our rush to the subway or running errands in a busy city. Today walking home we found three baby sparrows tucked in a pile of branches that had been cut from a tree nearby - again at my son's eye level. The sparrows chirped, but one wasn't hopping. We looked closer. Fyo wanted to do something, pick the birds up, feed them and take them to the vet. He wanted to make sure they were okay. We talked about how we didn't want to touch the birds unless they were really injured. We eventually saw the mom fly down to one of the baby sparrows. Knowing they had someone watching over them and that they would be okay, we walked home.
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