I was working at the desk and Polly was fast asleep on the couch the other afternoon, when there was a loud bang. Something had hit the large glass windows and hit them hard. Even Polly woke up (she kinda hibernates in this winter weather).
Outside on the terrace was a newly dead meadow pipit, still warm. But it was not it that made the bang. It was the kestrel who had just caught it!
The kestrel was almost knocked out and also on the terrace with its wings spread out, not knowing what had happened or where it was. I picked it up and put it on the stone ledge by the terrace. Several times its eye started to close and its head droop. Each time I stroked it, muttering the lines I had heard from the last bit of TV drama I had watched, 'stay with me'.
Gradually, it took almost 20 minutes, the kestrel recovered and eventually got up and flew away.I'll need to stick something on the window as other birds have hit it before. I think that from some angles they see through the windows and out the smaller ones on the seaward side and think they can fly right through.
First time I have handled a kestrel, a beautiful little hawk ... the pipit was beautiful too. I buried it.
3 comments:
Amazing to get to handle it like that.
Wow Dad, sad yet touching tale. It must have been an incredible experience to handle a wild bird up close and then to see it set free again. Polly was watching from inside the glass??
You can get black silhouette type stickers of birds to place on your windows.....it's supposed to deter them!
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