Flatlander Article Out

My understanding is that the bimonthly Yolo County "Flatlander" is out, containing my article regarding Baby Blue, the Scrub Jay (written and submitted before her unfortunate demise, however). For the record, here is that article:
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On April 28th, about noon, a strange springtime event occurred. I was raking just outside my back yard gate, when I looked down and found a baby blue jay writhing around, overheating in the sun. I scooped up the hot featherless, closed-eye baby, took him into the kitchen and washed him off under the water tap. I got the ladder and put the bird back in its nest in the hedge, as the mother bird screeched her displeasure from a few feet away.

The next day, Sunday, about 11:30 a.m., I opened the back gate, looked down, and found two baby birds writhing around. I was getting exasperated. My religious obligation on Sunday doesn’t include this preservation-of-life stuff. Nevertheless, once again, I put the birds back in the nest.

Four a.m. Monday, I cast a flashlight around under the nest where the baby birds had been falling out that afternoon. Splat on the ground was a very cold, very baby bird! It was clearly going to die soon.

What to do? I decided to sleep with the bird and nurse it through the night. I cut a sock in half and put the bird inside the bottom end. Then I placed the sock inside a rigid ring of a roll of masking tape, making a nest. I prepared a syringe of water, to hydrate the bird.

What to feed the bird? In the refrigerator, I had some smoked salmon. I washed the salmon to remove some of the salt and started feeding the bird. She seemed to be a Western Scrub Jay, a common bird which can eat many things. In time, I provided an entire buffet to the bird:

Do you want the salmon? Lot's of good salmon! How about rice? Here's some hamburger! Or maybe the pineapple? Crushed peanuts? Strawberry is good this time of year. The tuna part of the tuna/cucumber delight is excellent. Apple? How about the beans? Beans are very nutritious! Navy or pinto? The cat food looks great. Asparagus tip is great. You should try it. Look - shrimp! Banana is wonderful (maybe a bit pasty, so don't choke, but yummy!) Mandarin oranges? Lots of vitamin C! How about grapes? Here, let me peel them.... And don't forget the chicken chunks!

By May 3rd, I had noticed that the jays had disappeared from the vicinity of the house. I got the ladder and checked out the nest – empty. Something bad happened - a predator attack? In any event, it now looked like Baby Blue was a foundling.....

What a fine companion! Two weeks after I started caring for her, Baby Blue started to fly. Mostly it was a matter of short hops. At home at night, lying on the bed, she’d hop down from her nest and cuddle near my face, poking and tasting my nose, or trying to grapple with my rubbery thumb, fingers, or lips, or fussing with tiny hairs on my hands. When I opened my eyes, she looked up, eager to poke curiously at that huge, magical, mysterious blinking eye.

Monday night, May 14th, I was sitting in an easy chair and Baby Blue was fluttering about the living room, when she landed on my crossed leg, slipped off, and fell. Even though the drop was only a foot-and-a-half, she hit hard on her breast, and instantly retreated under the coffee table in the manner of a wounded animal.

The next morning, she wobbled and weaved and fluttered. Twice, she screamed in pain. Nevertheless, she kept her appetite, which suggested to me that the injury, if that’s what it was, need not be life-threatening if she got care. For an hour, we cuddled in the back yard. I called a vet, but he couldn’t respond immediately, so I called the Wildlife Care Association (WCA – phone no. 916-965-WILD) and left a phone message. Before hearing back from them, I decided to take Baby Blue directly to the WCA baby bird nursery in Carmichael.

The WCA had a reception area in one room and the nursery in another. I could see a woman tending racks of boxes from which the cacophonous roar of many dozens of birds could be heard. The WCA clerk asked me to fill in a form describing how I came to find the bird as he removed Baby Blue from her cardboard box, did a quick inspection, and placed her in a small container topped with a screen. Our conversation was confrontational, however:

MPV: May I come and visit the bird?
Clerk: No, you may not.
MPV: I just want to make sure she is OK.
Clerk: In our six-month season, we receive five to seven thousand birds. You may not come and visit the bird.
MPV: Well, then, may I have the bird back?
Clerk: It is illegal to keep wildlife. You may not have the bird back.

I was reminded of a scene from the musical "Oliver!", when the opportunistic character of Mr. Bumble is reminded that, in the eyes of the law, he is responsible for his wife's actions. He replies sarcastically, "Well, if the law supposes that, then the law is an ass." Continuing, the clerk said:

Clerk: The bird needs to be among her own kind. We will take care of her. You did the right thing.

But it sure didn’t feel like I was doing the right thing! I was fuming. Dagnabit, the dad gum gummint took my bird! Well, not the gummint exactly, not the one we pay taxes to, but a dad gum flock of righteous, liberal, bicycle-riding, mass-transit commuting, Birkenstock-wearing, tofu-eating, pencil-necked geeks who thought they were SO superior in their college educations (ignoring my own degree for the moment…)

That evening, I returned the three calls on my answering machine from the WCA. Being a decentralized organization, the WCA phone volunteer had returned the calls from her home while I was delivering Baby Blue to the WCA. She was much more sympathetic than the clerk had been. We both agreed that Scrub Jays are remarkably agreeable birds to work with. We discussed the foods that young Scrub Jays should not eat (not avocado, nor chocolate, and probably not the overly-salty smoked salmon I had been feeding the bird with) and the foods they should eat (hard-boiled egg yolk rendered into a paste, stringed-chicken baby food, bananas, peanuts, etc.).

One reason she began volunteering to help birds was her earnest first experience of saving a Scrub Jay, only to later fail in adequately socializing the bird with other Scrub Jays. The Scrub Jay vanished one day, likely in the claws of a silent, circling hawk the song bird never properly learned about. Found baby birds, even if nursed, are highly-unlikely to survive the real world unless they get proper social skills of the sort untrained people can’t provide.

I asked if she would check into how Baby Blue is doing at the WCA. She said she would do that for me. I look forward to the occasional updates! I hope Baby Blue will socialize well, and can learn to react to dangerous cats and hawks.