Thursday, September 1, 2011

Wildlife Adventures

Ok that may be overstating it more then a bit but Little Bit and her little friends probably don't think so.

A little after dinner we get a frantic child running in looking for a box. There is a bird. After a little wrangling we come to understand this is a real bird. And it's alive. But injured.
If you've ever tried to get a story out of a 7 year old you know this can be difficult, when that 7 year old has serious language delays, cognitive delay and autism, it is just plain ridiculous.

Shane went out to help the girls once he saw they had no idea what they were doing and got it into their little shoe box filled with an old nest, grass and some seed.



I was sent in to do the internet thing to discover what we needed to do.
Luckily I have a wonderful friend on twitter, SewShine, who is a vet in her real life, as well as being an excellent machine embroiderer. We were able to back and forth and discover that if the wing was broken it needed to go to a wildlife sanctuary, which for us is about 45 minute drive.
So I go back out to tell everyone and I find the bird if now perched itself in Shane's hand!


I go to touch it's wings to see if it actually is broken, or if we're dealing with a bird who just hasn't learned to fly yet. Shane has the brilliant idea to get a picture of the girls with the bird first, this bird has been taking being photographed very well, so quickly get the girls in a line, he bends over to put it in front and WOOSH! Away goes birdie to the top of our roof! Only picture is of the faces as they see it fly! I didn't have permission from the parents so can't share it yet. But trust me. It's hilarious.




After again consulting SewShine I was able to comfort the kids that the bird will be fine if he was able to fly to our roof he'll be able to survive fine on his own now.

So happy ending to all! And after about an hour search I think I've figured out that birdie is a Cedar Waxwing. Being a baby he hasn't fully expressed all his features but the yellow tips on his tail feathers and the mask around his eyes are what I'm going on.

 Having seen all the pictures the girls where drawing of birdie, as that's what they called him, I was not surprisingly asked why I didn't have a quilt for or with a bird on it. I was told I should make one.
This has some how been added to the never ending list of overcommitment that I currently have going. Any patterns or ideas?

2 comments:

Sara said...

Great story Cara and I am betting that bird had a great "Adventure!"

Inspiration comes from everywhere doesn't. Maybe that is why we never get done creating quilts in our head! HA!

Linda in Calif. said...

Oh Wow!! That's quite a story! So glad you took the time to share it with us. Aren't those yellow tips cool? As for an idea - maybe just applique a bird (with yellow tail tips) onto one of your quilts that you have going. I would say "kill two birds with one stone" but that would by a horrible thing to say!