birds and bandwagons

i haven't run in a week. i don't know why; it simply seems that i've fallen off the wagon for a bit. perhaps i will tomorrow, but i really don't feel so inclined at this point. sometimes i think i'd rather walk. i mean i get the sense that i may be missing something by jogging past it all so quickly (quickly may be a bit of an exaggeration).

i went for a walk the other day after hearing the firetrucks pass our home, and i made a discovery that i may not have made otherwise. i walked down to where i heard all the commotion. there was a fire at a condo down the road from us, but that seemed to me rather incidental. the fireman said it was a relatively small fire so i turned around to walk back home. on my way back, i made the real discovery. i noticed a mockingbird swooping down to peck at another bird that seemed to be grounded on the concrete below. i almost kept going, but i felt compelled to check it out. a little bird, a cedar waxwing crescent, had apparently been knocked out of the sky by the mocking bird and suffered some injury that prevented it from flight. i guess the bully bird wasn't content with his victory, but rather continued harrassing the little one as it struggled to regain footing. i got very close to the crescent yet he didn't fly away. so i reached down, picked him up and walked the rest of the way back with him. when i got to the house, i found a shoebox, put holes in it, and made him a little home and some sunflower seeds for dinner. my daughter and her cousin were thrilled to have our guest.

yesterday it looked as though he was getting better. he seemed perkier and ready to try out his wings. so we gave him the opportunity out front, but he couldn't do it. he hopped and fluttered but only mangaged to make it a couple feet in the air. my wife located the small wound on the inside portion of his left wing. we decided then that we would take him the next day to the "bird lady", a local woman who specializes in helping injured birds. but when i checked on him this morning, he was dead.

given my intro, perhaps you were expecting a happier ending to this story. but regardless of how it ended, the truth is, had i been running, i would have missed the opportunity to even attempt to rescue the bird. not all rescue attempts succeed, but i think most of them are worth trying.
i'm still not convinced to hang up my running shoes, but slowing down a bit is probably a good idea.