Tis the season around my hood when all of the baby birds are leaving their nests. Not quite able to fly, they hop around the grass while their frantic parents SCREECH continually from the trees above. Some are eaten by cats, but most make it up into the branches eventually.
This is my dogs second favorite time of year (the first being when the fruit trees are surrounded by their fallen rotten bounty which she attacks as though I’ve never once fed her. ) When she sees one of the babies - and these are crows and magpies, so we’re not talking wee little frail things- she runs up to them wagging like a psycho and wanting desperately to play and they of course run for their fucking lives because a freakishly happy yeti is attacking them. Maggi is truly baffled by their response, and even more so by the parent birds trying to dive bomb their beaks through her canine skull. This is all because when Maggi was a puppy, we had Warren.
A mouthful of Warren
Warren was a weird bird, refused to stay in his cage and followed Maggi around the apartment like a little yellow hopping shadow. Maggi would approach him, open her mouth and place it over Warren’s head. They would stand there, bird’s head in dog’s mouth for quite some time. I’m not sure if Warren was picking her teeth or what the hell was going on, but they both seemed to enjoy it. Because of Warren, Maggi (who hates almost everyone and everything) assumes that birds are her buddies and she seems quite put out that these young ones won’t play with her or voluntarily stick their little heads in her mouth.
One day, a small timid black farm cat that was destined to be eaten by coyotes was given to me- Enter Naysa the cat. When she arrived, I showed her the litter box and then took Maggi for a walk so she could gingerly sniff around without Maggi obnoxiously trying to figure out what the hell she was and I would figure out where to safely relocate Warren’s already high and out of the way cage when we returned from our stroll. We were only gone 15 minutes but I’m guessing that Warren was dead before we hit the sidewalk.
Maggi mourns him every year when the babies fall from their nests, and Naysa just sits there purring.
(both the bird and the pup)