Friday, June 18, 2010

I nearly grabbed a tiny tit...

I WAS CROSSING a quiet road near one of our largest local parks when a tiny blue bird fluttered down from a tree and sat in the middle of the road. I crossed and stood over him. What looked like a baby blue tit stared up at me, chirping indignantly as if to say "and what do you think YOU are doing here??!"
Wondering what was wrong with the little bird, who still refused to move, I made a motion to grab it; he fluttered clumsily off a couple of feet away and sat in the gutter cheep-cheeping at the top of his tiny lungs.
I thought "you can't stay there in the gutter like that" and made yet another not attempt at grabbing the little birdie, who did a better job at flying this time and found himself on the footpath beside a little wall where drug addicts sit waiting for their dealers (this of course this had nothing to do my being in that vicinity...)
Then my phone rang and "a friend" said he was driving down the road right at that moment, so I had to deal with that. I thought to myself, if the tiny tit is still there in a couple of minutes, then I'll take him home with me. He cannot sit on the path like that. He'll get trodden on or killed.
Three minutes later he was gone. I looked everywhere for him. He could have strayed under the parked cars where a cat would have made a tasty meal of him... I searched high and low, but could not hear his cheep-cheeping from anywhere. I have no idea where he went, or whether he suddenly learned how to fly.
Judging by his cheeps, he was a great tit, not fully fledged, but very spirited. I didn't want to take him home, though I do have a hammy cage he could have gone in... When would I have known to set him free? Would he ever have been able to go free if he'd lived in my house and become hand-tame?
Perhaps it's a good thing he vanished...

If you go to my first post yesterday and look under the German, you'll see some wonderful video of baby blue and great tits being hand-fed worms, etc. There's a particularly funny one of a blue tit getting soaking wet in a birdbath...

So why did this happen today? Is it the laws of attraction in action?

Illustrations: top, great tits; bottom, blue tit. Mine looked like a blue tit (very blue), but the chirrups sounded to me like a great tit, so I'm not sure...

13 comments:

  1. I wish that you had stayed with the little bird and not gone to the dealer. Maybe that is some kind of karma.

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  2. Yeah but if I'd stayed with the bird, what would I have done?

    It is a huge commitment looking after one, and that bird, if it really couldn't fly, was very nearly able. By taking it in I could have done more harm than good.


    You're not really supposed even to touch baby birds unless absolutely necessary, so I had to give it time to see if it could make its own way.

    Also the legal position is hazy. It's certainly illegal to trap wild birds to keep as pets (though foreign ones are fine, in the law's eyes). If anyone heard the cheeping and found out it was wild, I could have got into trouble. And if it couldn't go back to the wild, I wouldn't want to give it up to the RSPB.

    So you see, all these issues were in my mind too. Also how would I even get it home?

    I just wish I knew where the feathery swine WENT!!

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  3. hallo gledwood,
    bitte entschuldige, dass ich mich erst heute heute bei dir zurück melde.
    natürlich habe ich mich sehr gefreut, jetzt auch einen echten briten als follower in meinen blog zu haben.
    bin schon ein paarmal in deinen blog gewesen und gelesen.
    du hast es wirklich mit birdys, he?
    das find ich schön.
    auf deine frage warum ich in deutsch schreibe? liegt daran, dass die meisten meiner freunde und familie deutsch können. aber nur die wenigsten können englisch, werder spanisch.
    i'm a bit confused... du schreibst über drogen und trink probleme... wie kommt es dass du so klar schreibst and on top with both feet on the ground?
    maybe i should reed more in your blog. i'll do it as soon as i have more time. momentan ist schlecht.
    have a nice day and keep it up!
    ela

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  4. Hi Gleds, right place right time for the chance encounter lucky you*!*

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  5. Haha I love how you 'brushed' Sid off you ratbag. Fledgelings are best left where they are. He's out of the next so he's a survivor. Keeping wild birds is very difficult. And yes, perhaps he was there to tell you to spend more time with tits and less with shits!

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  6. I can understand your concern of the little bird but it's best to leave them be. I'm concerned that you met a dealer. :(

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  7. Bimbie: do you know when I was posting that I thought "no one will believe that really happened exactly the next day after posting all those tiny tits having baths etc but it DID, seriously it did... isn't that called Synchronicity...? Or something like that?? Very Jungian, for sure...

    Sweden: what's the expression?... any more thana handful is a waste..?? Summut like that. ee oop, aye!

    Baino: I hope he's a survivor. He did appear to kind of spiral down from the sky... then again, I had a really good look up in the 2 trees he could have come from, which weren't particularly high, couldn't see any nests, so maybe he's playing games!
    He did look funny sitting in the middle of the road chirping indignantly***!***

    Akelamalu: aye, I never touched it. I heard their parents go off them if you do. Also as I said before, how could I ever have let it go again if I took it in. I had to give it 5 mins to make its own way, otherwise it's just not fair...

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  8. Hi Ela:
    Vielen Danke für der Antwort. Ich wunderte mich über warum du sprichst Deutsch, wann es so viel Englische Blogs gibt. Aber nun verstehe ich.
    Es ist sonderbar: seit 1 oder 2 Wochen, als ich ausging und traf Deutschsprechender Bloggers, hatte ich keine Ahnung, dass sie so unbequem mit Englisch würde. Du kennst das Sprichwort: "they all speak English"
    Aber offensichtlich nicht wahr!

    Mit Birdies, dieses Jahr scheint es so viel zu geben! Ich bestätigte, der Vogel, der in der Nähe von meinem Fenster singt ist wirklich eine Nachtigall. Wie erstaunlich! Früher hatte ich keine Ahnung welcher Vogel welches Lied sang. Dieses Vogelkentnis ist eine ganz neue Dinge für mich!
    Drogen und Trink: du meinst dass ich nüchtern schreibe? Das kann ich nicht erklären, aber vielleicht hat es etwas mit Heroin zu tun, die ist wie Rohbaumwolle. Es verändert nicht
    die Erkenntnis viel... mit Alkohol, trinke ich nur wenig heutzutage... maybe that's why...
    I hope my German isn't too terrible today. The more tired I am the worst it seems to get and most of the time I feel totally tangled in the reversing word-order..! I hope this answers you properly ;-)...

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  9. Ela: talking about birdies, I just read that through and it's pracically pigeon German!!

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  10. hey gledwood, you're doing well!
    your german is like my english. i havn't used it for so long. only about once a year when visiting my doughter. but now i'm getting in to it again.
    well i have to... i have the british passport. ;-)
    and about 250 mini union jacks hanging on a string in my room! honest!
    my children are half british too.
    well, have a nice weekend!
    ela

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  11. PS your English is far better than my German. You don't get into constant tangles and then slap all the wrong endings on your adjectives ;-)...

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