Some of you may remember the little sparrow I found on my driveway a couple of weeks ago. If not, you can read the full story here.
The other day, when I took Tigro the tomcat in for vaccines, the vet was happy to tell me that Tino (as my younger son named the little bird) was alive and kicking. At the time it had seemed that he was partially paralysed because he couldn't seem to move his right leg (do birds have legs? Stick-figure legs...). Apparently, however, it was all psychological! When he was left on his own in a cage at the vet's office he got up and hopped around to take care of his "business." But, when people came around, he played dead.
I thought that was pretty odd, personally, but the vet swore it was true. She said little birds like Tino are literally petrified with fear when people touch them. They can even die of a heart attack from fear. Well, I'm glad our attempts to save him from death by cat didn't cause him to die of fear!
Some volunteers from the WWF came by the vet's office to get him and took him to a bird shelter where he is living happily ever after amidst his similars. In a cage (which I hate)...but she promised me that it's a *really big* cage that he and the other birds can fly around in.
Anyway, his fate would have been sealed if I had left him on the driveway that day. Tigro is turning out to be quite the hunter and, besides finding lots of dissected lizard bits scattered about on the patio, on two separate occasions we've found dead sparrows with Tigro using them for batting practice.
This one's for you, Tino!
6 comments:
A bird tha was literally took off by my friend from his cat's mouth, had been eaten a sec after from another cat that was passing by. My friend told me that his cat didn't hide all his disappoint...
So in that situation there was one unlucky bird, one unhappy cat...and one fat cat! ;-)
i remember rescuing a sparrow in new zealand. i was very young, and my mother bought the bird into the house because it looked ill. after half a day sitting in the house doing nothing except staring us, it
suddenly sprang to life and we couldnt get it out!
you know that holiday against fascism that we celebrate in greece, the one we call NO day? it was the day we denied mussolini access into the country during wwII (believe it or not...)
hey, you went to creta paradise? that was one of the best hotels in hania - many more similar complexes have been built since, so it isn't the most popular any more, but it is still a very good one
Yes, we had our honeymoon there in June 1993!
Oh, I saw the photo, that's not a sparrow, that's a robin :)
Cute little fierce birds, put a sparrow in front of a mirror and see what a mess he does trying to chase away his 'enemy'! ^_^
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