Part Four: Little Dude’s Sticky Situation
Sarah felt a ray of hope inside. She would investigate the nest, figure out
where it was, and go from there. She
grabbed a mixing bowl from her kitchen, found some comfy towels to put inside,
and carefully lifted Little Dude into his temporary makeshift nest. She placed a small towel over him so that he
was nicely warm and snug. Then she went
outside on a mission.
With a chair and flashlight in hand, Sarah carried her items
down to her covered parking area, stood up on the chair, and tried to peer her
flashlight into the two holes that were directly above where Little Dude fell. Sarah’s suspicions were confirmed: She wasn’t tall enough to see clearly into
those holes and figure out which one held the nest. She didn’t hear any chirping either, which
made her wonder if there were any other siblings in there at all. She really needed to know that. She didn’t want to put Little Dude back into
an empty nest!
So she walked upstairs and found one of her neighbors
outside. Right away she explained the
situation, and asked her neighbor if she had a small ladder available. The neighbor didn’t, and felt bad that she
didn’t know how to help out. Then
another neighbor came out, and he was a tall neighbor.
Oh good! I need someone tall!
Sarah went to him, but he told her the same advice about Mama
not accepting the baby back into the nest because of human scent.
That silently frustrated Sarah for two reasons. One: she just didn’t want to believe it. Two:
It meant neither of her neighbors, nice though they were, were going to help
out. Little Dude’s fate now rested
entirely in her hands. She thought for a
moment, and there was one conclusion she came to: there was only one way to
find out which theory was right. She
decided to take Little Dude down with her in his makeshift nest, and she was going
to bird watch for Mama’s return until her husband came home from work.
Not much time had passed until his car pulled up. He got out, and straightaway Sarah enlisted
him to step on the chair and see which hole carried the nest.
She was so glad her husband was tall, because he spotted the
nest right away. The problem was, out of
the two holes, Mama had planted her nest in the smallest one. Sarah stuck a winter glove on, and barely had
enough room to fit her hand up into the hole.
How was she going to get Little Dude back up in there? Should she even try? After plenty of discussion with her husband,
they both decided that it was the first course of action they should at least
try for. It was, after all, what
Wikipedia suggested (and Wikipedia is never, ever wrong).
Donning some kitchen gloves (Sarah was concerned about
handling Little Dude with bare hands again, just in case Mama wouldn’t approve)
and a face mask for safety measures (because
you never know what you are dealing with when you stick your hand up into a
hole filled with insulation and a bird nest), she cupped Little Dude in her
hands and slowly raised her arm up like an elevator shaft, carefully
positioning Little Dude to slide right up into the hole.
Little Dude didn’t quite like the lift, and scooted around
on Sarah’s gloved hands, refusing to leave.
Suddenly his butt lifted, and—SQUIRT!
Down poured a thin stream of white liquid poop onto Sarah’s
face and shirt.
Sarah got bird bombed.
Thankfully it hadn’t penetrated her eye, but the runny poop
was slowly moving down into that area, so she asked her husband for the small
towel that she had used to place over Little Dude (this was the second time she
wasn’t freaking out about warm poop getting on her. Boy was she proud!). Her husband, not realizing it had gotten onto
her face, quickly lifted it to her.
After mopping it up— with Little Dude still sitting on her
gloved palm—she wiggled and twisted her hand enough so that Little Dude was
forced to step onto the ceiling’s ledge.
After that, she finished squeezing her hand up into the hole, where (as
gently as she could) Sarah lifted him so he was sitting next to his baby
brother again. Little Dude squawked
loudly during all of this, because little did Sarah know, he did NOT want to go
back up into the nest with his little brother.
“Back from Hollywood already beak-brain?” Little Dude’s
brother pestered. “What, was your fat
beak too ugly for them, too? Ha!”
Little Dude groaned.
This was not what he wanted. A
very nice lady had lifted him up and carried him somewhere very far away. Her hands were warm, and there was even a new
nest he was placed in. Okay, yes he had
been scared, but now that he was back with his annoying older brother, Little
Dude realized that in a very short time, he had outgrown his home.
Maybe the nice lady would take him to Hollywood!
That thought excited Little Dude very much. Scooting back to the ledge of his home and
ignoring his squawking brother’s comments, Little Dude opened his wings, sure
that this time would be different. This
time his wings would work, and he could—
PLOP.
Fall right back down the hole again.
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