Red Wing Weekend

Friday morning Tessa and I are in the backyard getting our swing on when DH appears out of no where.
"Here"
I reach out my hand and in it he places a bird - a BIRD! More specifically a cardinal.

We are well versed in this drill, lost and injured animals seem drawn to us. After all that is how we acquired our parakeet Peep. I brought her inside and placed her in a cardboard box. Poor little thing listed over to one side until her feet were in the air and started breathing heavily. Her pupils dilated and it looked as if that very moment she was flapping towards the light - not my watch! I scooped her up in a towel, taking care not to compress her wings, and snuggled her on my chest. I softly stroked her crest until she fell asleep and then set her down on a chair next to me. She rested this way for about 20 minutes when Tessa came breezing by, startling our feather friend. With a giant leap she was off and running. We chased her around the back of the house (insert Yakkity Sax, Bennie Hill-esq type music). She was ducking under heavy construction equipment and I was playing hopscotch around hammers and socket sets. Zip Zoom! It ran into my bedroom and under the bed - damn it!
Can you see her under there?
I woke my Slacker Brother up and he stood to one side gently pushing the bird with a swiffer as I scooped her out. At this point I looked her over as she obviously was unable to fly. It appears that she smacked into a moving car and screwed up the whole right side of her body.
DH had found her sitting in the middle of the road - a slow paced suicide act. After nearly driving over her, he doubled back and without much resistance picked her up. She's not vicious as you would expect a wild bird to be. She's actually quite content to sit with you unless you make a sudden movement or go near her injured side. Even then she may nip you but it's like being nipped by a baby lizard - no malice, nothing sharp, just a decent grip.
Here's Tessa checking out Miss Cardinal
For now we have her caged and are trying to keep her quiet. Her wing doesn't seem to be broken, hopefully just sprained. We are taking her out into the backyard daily and once she can fly off, bye bye birdie. Until then we are feeding her meal worms and sun flower seeds and enjoying our own indoor wildlife exhibit.
Oh what the heck - here's one more bird picture. What could be better than a cute injured cardinal and a nice rack?

Filed in: cardinal rescue bird wildlife