the bird whisperer

my dad loves birds, and they love him. he feeds them all winter long, and they sing their little hearts out in our backyard even on the coldest of days. sometimes they are so distracted by all of the bird seed and the singing and their love for my father that they mistake our windows for open flying space. this, my friends, is a sad reward for beautiful song. running head-on at bird speed into a wall of glass usually means the end of a little creature's life, but for the ones who happen to hit our window, they are the lucky few.

my dad, The Bird Whisperer, is a one-man bird revival team. the second we hear the ping-thump! of a little beak hitting glass, he's running for the back door. boots, gloves, door slams, rounding the garage, scooping up a dazed bundle of feathers, back inside, holding tight in warm hands. you see, my ornithology-knowledge-less friends, birds who have had a run-in such as i've described can die of shock within minutes, especially in cold weather, if they aren't kept calm and warm.

i'm both happy and proud to say that this past weekend i witnessed my father saving yet another one of his favorite backyard friends- a White-breasted Nuthatch. it was oddly touching, watching the little guy (gal?) sit happily in my dad's fist, knowing that without The Bird Whisperer, the poor thing would have surely been dead in a snowbank.

i know it's odd, but that's okay. it makes me happy and it's a memory i have that goes as far back as i can remember. i'm glad that my dad has taught me the intricacies of bird-revival, so that some day i too will be able to save the little singers in my own backyard.

catch

and release

(please forgive the sideways-ness of these videos... i am, occasionally, a techno-idiot.)