Picture the scene; I was walking home with two friends and was nearly at my door, when Angie suddenly drew our attention to something on the floor. On closer inspection, I realised it was a tiny baby bird that had clearly fallen from its nest. We looked around but couldn't see the nest anywhere and it was sat on the pavement where a cat could eat it at any given moment. I am hardly Mother Theresa (God bless her soul) but something about leaving it exposed, to cook in the sweltering 30°C heat didn't sit right with me so I took it up to my flat and gave it a bit of water. It really was the tiniest of things, and to be able to eat it would need regurgitated bugs directly from its mother's mouth. I started to chew on a piece of bread and thought it might eat some, but I wasn't sure how that would go down (or come up for that matter... I'm not sure me vomiting on a bird counts as an act of kindness). So, my boyfriend and I got the yellow pages out and looked for a vet. On a Saturday night. In July. Just to clarify, finding anything in a Spanish city on a summer's weekend is almost impossible due to the fact that everyone rushes off to the coast, leaving the city in a ghost town, post-apocalyptic like state until Monday morning.
Still, I remembered where there were a couple of vets near, so we went down hoping for a miracle, with the bird in a shoe box and attracting some very strange looks. Human nature is a funny thing, because whenever we see a box, we have to know what's in it. People were craning their necks (no bird-related pun intended) to see what I was carrying and then shot me a look of horror and confusion when they clicked.
Anyway, as we approached the spot where I found the poor creature, my boyfriend was eagle-eyed enough to notice two other babies sticking their little heads out of a hole in the brick facade of our building. (OK, that pun was intended, so sue me). The mother kept flying out and coming back to the makeshift nest with sustenance, so I stood, waving my arms and holding the bird above my head like Rafiki in the Lion King but to no avail, they didn't see me. I encouraged the thing to tweet, (verb used in its original context, not in reference to social networking) or make some kind of noise so its mother would hear it and come to its rescue. When it didn't do as I had asked, it dawned on me that the bird might not actually speak English, so I tried again in Spanish. Still nothing. "Fine," I thought, "I'll try and do it for you".
Saying the words "tweet tweet" did nothing. I tried to whistle but I have never been able to, so ended up just blowing air like I was putting out a candle. I then started making the "kissy" sounds I used to make to my cat, and then thought that using a catcall to entice a bird might be one of the stupidest things I've ever done. They are probably afraid of cats after all. Not my finest moment.
We continued on to the vets to find, unsurprisingly, that it was closed. There was an out-of-hours emergency number to phone, but there was no answer. How useful! Trekking to the next vets was the only thing I could think of, but again, no luck. The only saving grace was that there was a different number to phone. This time, we got through to a man who was kind enough to suggest that we took it to the 24 hour emergency clinic and even gave us directions. It was a fair way away, so we hopped onto the tram to get there a little faster. As our luck would have it, there was not only one, but three inspectors huddled together and eyeing us suspiciously. I half-expected them to fine us, under the excuse that the bird needed its own ticket, what with the current economic crisis and all.
When we arrived at our stop, we got off and realised that we were in the middle of nowhere and it was dark. Desperately trying to find this place, we wandered around an area that looked like an old meat-packing district where killers and rapists would have a field day. "I'm too old for this lark!" I thought. (Yes, another intended pun, I wanted to lighten the mood after such a sombre statement). Eventually, we found the clinic and I explained the dilemma to the vet. After seeing a sign on the wall which read that a single consultation costs €70, I figured they weren't just going to swiftly "take it off my hands".
Sure enough, he wasn't interested when he learned that it wasn't my bird. He told me quite indifferently that I had two options; I could either take it home and try and rear it myself on a diet of baby food or dog food (seriously? dog food? What kind of vet is this?), but this is an arduous task and I would probably end up killing it. (I have to say, his ability to judge character was astounding, he hadn't even seen the many plants that I have unsuccessfully "maintained", and I feel much less prepared to become an adoptive mother). Alternatively, I could leave it where I found it and the mamma might come back for it.
So, armed with our shoebox, we set off on the way back home, walking this time, all the while feeling a bit deflated and as if the past two hours of our lives had been in vain. By this time, the wee bird was shivering because there was a chilly breeze in the night air. I hadn't come this far to let it freeze to death and I have always had warm hands, so I carried it the rest of the way.
We phoned another couple of vets en route, but they more or less said the same thing. Back at square one, we could still see no way of getting it near its nest, so I popped it onto a nearby tree in the hope that its mum would come to find it later on. It quickly crawled into the hollow of a branch there, so much so that it was impossible to access again. I took solace in the fact that, after so much to-ing and fro-ing, it could at least huddle in there and spend the night in a warm, safe place instead of being eaten or trampled on.
Will it die? Almost certainly. Should I have reared it myself, with babyfood and a syringe? Probably, but it was short notice and I didn't have the equipment. Plus, I work a lot and don't have the time to rehabilitate a bird. What I am taking from this whole episode is that I may have helped the wee thing cross something off its bucket list. I'd like to think that the reason it fell out of the nest in the first place was because it wanted to see the world and was anxiously impatient to fly. It may have been too frail to do so, but it did get to ride on a tram, and free of charge no less. Now how many chicks can say that?
