purple_finch tender_square they were in mid-conversation as they passed their neighbour’s place when she noticed a purple finch pecking at the pavement. she stopped to watch and the bird darted away, leaving a red spot on the driveway. she stepped closer. “oh my god, it’s a baby bird!” the body was distended belly and drawing breath, with wings of translucent cartilage. the bird was blind. she scanned the direction the mother finch had flown, and spotted it in an evergreen on their property. “what can we do?” he asked. “if we try to touch it, the mama will abandon it because she smells us. we just have to leave it be,” she reasoned. “what are we going to do, raise a baby bird?” “you always notice the most awful things.” “it’s not awful, it’s life.” she lingered on the porch after they reached their front door; would the mama finch fly back? was she picking up her baby with her beak to bring it to safety? or was the interrupted moment the finch’s private grieving? yes, this was nature. the part of her that was desperate to turn away was the same part that galvanized her to remain, watching the scene unfold from afar through binoculars, waiting for some intervention to happen. (the baby bird was breathing.) she typed “fallen baby bird” into her phone and the first result read “if you can locate a nest nearby, the best thing to do is simple place the nestling back in the nest…the parents will come back. don’t worry, your scent won’t deter the parents.” viburnum tinus hung over the neighbour’s driveway, its white blossoms lost to the heat and leaving tarnished stems. she scanned its scrawny arms but couldn’t find a nest. the results said that the nestling could be moved to shade, but she saw a chipmunk and a squirrel foraging nearby and didn’t want to make an easy meal for them in the cover of shade and shrub. then, she spotted the nest. in their shed was a ladder they never used, one she had bought to clean out the gutters even though she was too afraid of heights to use it. she wiped at her eyes as she walked. “please god, let me be able to do this.” each rung was covered with the spun threads of spiders and their prey. “please god, let me be able to do this.” she arranged the ladder, mindful of her imposing body and the fragile baby bird’s. the top rung reached the arching branch that held the nest. “please god, let me be able to do this.” she climbed the ladder without looking down wearing her work gloves. she touched the hard fibers of the nest, the interlocking twigs, a basin for birthing and allofeeding. her hand would reach it. but on the descent she realized she wouldn’t have two hands to steady herself for the climb; the bird would be cupped in her palm, there was no other way to manage it. “please god, let me be able to do this.” she bent over the baby bird (still breathing) and gently, with thumb and index, lifted its weightless existence into her palm. the nestling shifting its nascent, veined wings, its yellow beak opening and closing, opening and closing, head turning back and forth in response to her touch. she made a cradle of her right hand. “please god, let me be able to do this.” steadily, she climbed, thinking that even if she fell, her first responsibility was to protect the bird. she lifted her hand to the edge of the nest and slowly turned her wrist. the bird made contact with the lip of the branched bowl and was inside but liable to fall or be seen by predators. she used her fingers to coax it deeper into the hold, unseen through the knit of sprigs. she made her way down the ladder, tipped it on its side and closed its metal legs. she carried its weight with two hands, easing her way past the cars, and back into the shed. as she padlocked the doors she wept. would it be enough? 220620 ... raze three years ago — almost to the day — i found a bird_dead_on_its_feet on my front lawn. it was a robin. it stunned me that it didn't even try to fly away when i got close. i didn't know it at the time, but it was suffering from heat stroke. it was so still, at first i almost thought it was a figurine. every once in a while it would take a few halting steps forward without ever getting anywhere. it didn't look afraid. just confused. by the time i understood what was happening, it was too late. the bird wasn't a bird anymore. it was roadkill. that's always stung me. i wish i would have done something. even if i couldn't have saved the robin, i could have at least offered it some water or tried to comfort it somehow. maybe it would have let me stroke its feathers and sing something pretty in its ear. reading this took some of that sting away. you stared down your fear and did everything you could to give that helpless baby bird a fighting chance at life without taking it out of nature's hands completely. in saving that purple finch, it felt like you saved my dying robin too. and all i can say is thank you. 220620 what's it to you? who go blather from