Tales From the Funny Farm: Installment Two

A friend and I were discussing various pets we've had, and I was inspired to write today's installment of Tales From the Funny Farm.

This particular story takes place on yet another family vacation. My sister, Mindy, was around nine years old, making me around 12 or 13. We were on a trip to somewhere in the western U.S., and we'd stopped at a campground in Kansas to stay for the night.

One of our favorite things to do when we got to a new campground was to unload our bikes and check things out while Dad set up the camper. This campground was not very full and all of the roads and paths were dirt, so Mindy and I hopped on our bikes and took off exploring. We road around the perimeter of the camp sites, and as we were heading back to our spot, we heard a high-pitched chirp.

We put our bikes down and followed the sound, looking for the source of the tweeting. Finally we found a tiny, newborn bird at the base of a tree. We looked up and saw that the bird had fallen out of it's nest above, and we knew that the bird's mother would reject it if we put it back in the nest.

We road back to our camper and reported our findings to Mom. Knowing we were animal lovers, Mom was sure that we couldn't just leave the little bird, so she gathered up a shoe box and some newspaper and headed to that tree with us.

The bird was still there when we got back, tweeting and chirping. When we approached him, we put his head back and opened his beak, wanting to be fed. When Mom saw how young this bird was, I think she knew that his chances for survival were not good, but she carefully scooped him up and put him in the shoe box.

When we got back to the camper we pulled out a slice of white bread and ran it under the water faucet. Then we tore it apart and made tiny balls. We took them to the little bird, and he immediately opened his beak, so we dropped a ball in. No matter how much we fed him, he always opened his beak when he was approached.

The night went on, and we carried on our camping tradition -- eating dinner and then gathering around the table for a family game night. We sat the box with the little bird on the table as we played, each of us taking turns dropping little bread balls into his beak. The bird chirped and tweeted all night. Finally it was time for bed, and we hoped that the bird would rest as well. Turns out he just wanted to chirp, so sometime during the night one of us moved his box into the bathroom.

The next morning, Mom got up to brush her teeth, and I noticed from my top bunk that no tweeting was coming from the bathroom. I looked at Mom, and she shook her head. I was sad, but we all knew that Mindy was going to be devastated. She was younger and didn't understand that wild baby birds did not do well in captivity. We all waited quietly when we saw Mindy get up from her bed and go into the bathroom. We held our breaths and expected tears. After a few minutes, the bathroom door opened and Mindy came out. We looked at her. She looked at us. And then she said in a sing-song voice, "He's deeeeeaaaaaaad."

We were all so relieved that we burst out laughing. We buried that poor little bird before we left the campground that day and hoped that would be our only temporary pet encounter for the duration of the trip.