Scrub Jay

The door was open allowing in the fresh air that beautiful September day, but I didn’t see Marina until she started talking to me through the screen.

 “Deana. Do you want to come help me with this bird?”

 “Bird?” I turned to see my sister-in-law at my door.

 “There is a bird caught in my fence and I can’t get it out alone. I think we need to cut it out. It’s tangled in some kind of a net.”

 I grabbed my garden sheers, slipped into my old clogs and hurried to her house, two doors down.

 A dusty blue scrub jay was caught in her chain-link fence, desperately tangled in a green plastic mesh. Its mate, a deep blue male, squawked at us as we approached, but when we got close he fluttered to a nearby tree to watch. 

 The male’s cries continued as Marina grabbed the trapped bird from behind. The panic stricken creature was flapping about in such a panic we feared she would further tangle herself, or worse or break a wing.

 Marina carefully wrapped her fingers around the frightened bird and held her for me to clip the mesh away.  I snipped at the strands of plastic till we could remove the bird from chain link.

 Now that she was free from the fence but still tangled in green plastic we could see that the mesh was wound tightly around her neck. As I reached into her feathers, searching for the bits of plastic, I was amazed at how soft the bird was. The feathers were so light and delicate I almost couldn’t feel them brushing against my fingers.

 Now that the helpless bird was captured she became still only moving her head to watch us. Even the male quieted for a moment, seeming to wonder what we would do.

 Together we managed to unwind the thin strands from her tiny neck. We would talk to each other trying to figure out where to move and where to clip and we would talk to the bird in soothing tones.

 I don’t know if our voices helped. These birds are in my yard and at my feeders all the time. They are assertive and sometimes even aggressive with other birds. I love their bravado as the try to threaten me from the backyard believing I have invaded their territory. Yet now, vulnerable and frightened, this bird never made an attempt to bite. Between the two of us we had fingers all around her and often those fingers came quite close to her face and beak. I was sure she would bite as I twisted the plastic, untangling and snipping it.

 Then the last bit of plastic came loose. It was the one around her neck. It was easy to slip off any strands after that. The moment I had the last bit of plastic in hand, Marina lifted the bird a little higher and opened her hands.

 The scrub jay instantly spread her wings, shot into the sky, and joined her mate.

 Within half an hour the two loud scrub jays bickered with some smaller birds at the feeder by my window, tough and bullies demanding the seed to themselves.  I watched them, none the worse for wear.

 I wondered at this moment for a long time. By chance it happened on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks, a September 11^th rescue for a bird. I still wonder at our ability as humans to do things such as save a little bird when we so often lack the ability to save each other. 

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