pet connection

A baby bird scared Archer today. I know, I know; that’s really sad. But it was a very scary baby bird.

We were at the training yard, and I realized the baby birds in the cypress tree were beginning to fly. The parents were dive bombing the dogs and me, and they do that when the baby birds leave the nest. So I began looking for the babies.

The babies aren’t very smart at this stage of their lives, and last year a dog ate one and a gopher snake got two. I’d like to see a higher survival rate.

As I was looking, Bashir came to me with his mouth half open and a very funny look on his face. Hoping for the best but prepared for the worst, I held out my hand, said, “Bashir, give,” and he spat out a baby bird. The baby was fine, as he promptly began to squawk in disgust. I told Bashir what a good boy he was and placed the baby bird on the shade cloth on top of the dog runs so the parents could see him.

I then continued my search for any of the other baby birds. I didn’t find the next one; Archer did.

Archer was getting a drink when all of a sudden he went straight up in the air, overturned the water bowl, and backed up at least three feet. If I were talking about a horse, I would say the horse “scattered.” I’m not sure there’s a similar term for dogs, but in any case, Archer scattered big time!

Meanwhile, I saved this tiny, but very scary, baby bird and put him on the shade cloth, too. He can tell his brother all about the time he scared this huge big black dog!

Photo: Bird on shade cloth, taken with my camera phone!