Today while sitting in my favorite chair, reading a suspenseful novel, just at the crescendo of excitement, with my nose buried in the book (Mule - at the heart of harvest season, a book on moving pot!) a loud thud levitated me off my seat by a few inches. Just behind my head, I realized a bird had hit the window. After just having taken down my summer shades, white panels that hang with suction cups, I wasn't ready for such an immediate kamikaze. Normally it's a finch. This was obviously much bigger. I grabbed my Arnica spray from the bathroom and rush out barefoot. There just off the back step, a quail moved a bit, then lay still. I picked her up, her eyes still open. Before I could spray her, her eyes closed, and she died.
I wasn't ready for this. This was my first casualty. The finches always sat on my open hand for a few moments after a spray, and after fluffing their feathers, and would flit off. She was the size of a softball, round and soft and now dead. Her neck was broken. I didn't need this after yesterday. It was too much. I gently set her down in the only place I saw; a planter at my feet, white and clean and safe. I went back inside, and just sat there, my sadness growing. Normally death and dying doesn't bother me, but I had held this life while it passed, and somehow it made it different. Maybe it was the underlying sadness of losing a friend.
After standing over the planter for awhile, I realized I needed to do something. Normally if I find a dead animal, whether on the road or off, I put it somewhere that is conducive to being returned to the earth. Once my son, at maybe 5 or 6, went to the airport with me. On the lonely road to the airport, there was a dead jackrabbit in the road. We got out and looked at him. There was no blood or apparent injury, so I talked to my son about death, something he didn't understand when his grandmother passed recently. I explained the rabbit's body stayed behind, and it's spirit had gone. I set him carefully off the road, so no other animal would get run over. I thought I did a rather good job of it. One the way back, as we approached the spot we'd found him in, he got agitated, 'Maybe he's alright now!' I realized, he just wasn't ready. Maybe it was because there was no blood. Not on the rabbit, not on my bird.
As I left to walk with my neighbors (a first mushroom forage) a short time later, still contemplating how to care for this dead thing, I wandered out front to look around. There, not 4' from the front door, was a large hole. Not a gopher, probably the ground squirrel that ate all my grapes and grapevines, the calendula and hollyhock flowers. I decided here was a perfect burial spot. I tucked her gently into the hole, and apologized for not marking my windows. RIP, my soft chubby quail, may your next life be better.
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| Everything I need - and the fateful glass door behind me. |
After standing over the planter for awhile, I realized I needed to do something. Normally if I find a dead animal, whether on the road or off, I put it somewhere that is conducive to being returned to the earth. Once my son, at maybe 5 or 6, went to the airport with me. On the lonely road to the airport, there was a dead jackrabbit in the road. We got out and looked at him. There was no blood or apparent injury, so I talked to my son about death, something he didn't understand when his grandmother passed recently. I explained the rabbit's body stayed behind, and it's spirit had gone. I set him carefully off the road, so no other animal would get run over. I thought I did a rather good job of it. One the way back, as we approached the spot we'd found him in, he got agitated, 'Maybe he's alright now!' I realized, he just wasn't ready. Maybe it was because there was no blood. Not on the rabbit, not on my bird.
As I left to walk with my neighbors (a first mushroom forage) a short time later, still contemplating how to care for this dead thing, I wandered out front to look around. There, not 4' from the front door, was a large hole. Not a gopher, probably the ground squirrel that ate all my grapes and grapevines, the calendula and hollyhock flowers. I decided here was a perfect burial spot. I tucked her gently into the hole, and apologized for not marking my windows. RIP, my soft chubby quail, may your next life be better.
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