Dead Bird House

This is the time of year when the blogosphere is in full moving swing. Everyone in medicine moves in June. It is a fact of life. But, I bucked that tradition and moved months ago and just waited until June to officially declare it as so. I am no longer tied down to medical school, residency, or fellowship. I am free to make my own terrifying decisions about where to live and when to move. Take that medicine!

Back to our move. We were going to name our new home something beautiful and grand, like Twelve Oaks, but that doesn't exactly describe it. The name it wants to be called so badly is the Dead Bird House. It is what it is.

We live in a glass house. The birds don't know what glass is. Dead Bird House.

I washed the windows. They need to be washed again. We have two bird "imprints" already. At least 4-5 times a day we hear a "thud" that makes me think something has fallen off the wall. Four birds have already passed from this life and on to bird heaven before their time. It is a problem that I don't know the remedy for. The house is already here. It isn't a mobile home that we can pick up and move. I can't send a message to the birds to change their flight path. Are they trying to run me out of town? What do I do about the birds?

Currently we are nursing back to health (at least I think that is what we are doing) a small bird that smacked into our window earlier today. We thought it was certainly dead. On it's back, feet in the air, twitching a little.

What is the humane and moral thing to do?

Do I take a shovel and put it out of it's misery?

Do we just watch it suffer? We can all see it from the living room!

Do I move it so it can suffer alone and leave us in peace?

All of the above sounded so callous and wrong. In the end I decided to take the kids for a ride and see if the bird wouldn't naturally pass. See what I just did. Ignore the problem and distract.

When we can home an hour later the bird was upright, but not moving. I mean seriously not moving. What kind of bird would just sit and let four children gather around without twitching? I warned the kids to not touch the bird. Something about once you touch it the bird will smell like you and the other birds will peck it to death. I have no idea if that is true, but it sounds like something I heard once.

I can't be responsible for a bird dying that way. Pecked to death by it's family.

So the bird is upright. I bring out a shallow plate and put some water in. It is summer after all, and surely birds get thirsty too. I put the dish right up against the bird and it didn't move. I don't know if it has had anything to drink. I think it moved it's head, but I don't know how much longer the poor thing has to live.

Every few minutes I look over hoping that it will recover and fly away to live happily every after. I don't want to think about the alternative.