Thursday, January 15, 2009

Sad Morning







I woke up and drew back my bedroom curtains to find this upsetting sight. Guess I need some feedback on whether this is a freak accident, or whether I caused it by using fishing line to hang the bird feeder. It appears that a female cardinal got her neck wrapped up in the fishing line, and was strangled and is now hanging out there like an exquisite corpse waiting to be extracted. There was a snow storm last night, a couple of inches, could she perhaps have been making her way to the feeder early this morning and did not see the fishing line, flew into it, got caught, struggled, and got herself into a worse situation?




I used fishing line to hang the feeder because it seems to discourage the squirrels from getting the food. They chewed off the line once already, and this is the second time I have hung it. I guess when I go out to get the bird I'll see more closely what may have happened. I feel awful if it was my fault. It never occurred to me that the line could be a problem for the birds. We know what a problem it is for critters of the ocean; I guess critters of the sky hate it too.
11.30am. Went out and checked and removed the bird. I'm pretty sure she didn't see the clear fishing line, flew into it, and got her wing caught. Her neck seemed broken. She's so beautiful, even with her body so cruelly fractured.
The top two picture actually belong here, but I can't figure out how to move them down the page. Cut and paste doesn't work.




2 comments:

Rosa said...

Oohh... :( how awful...

John Pluecker said...

so disturbing...

and normally you can select the photo and pull it down. like click it and hold down while you move it. but you can only move the photo so far. a lot of times it's best to just upload all the photos again.

poor bird. how do bird's survive in that cold anyway? they should come down here to the south.

:)