Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Cuckoo rescue

Yesterday while sitting on the couch in the living room and reading, I was startled by a loud thump of something hitting the picture window. Looking out the window I couldn't see anything, but if whatever it was had dropped straight down, I wouldn't have been able to. When I went outside, I saw this:


It's a yellow-billed cuckoo. I watched her (him? you can't tell with cuckoos) for a few minutes but she just sat there, completely dazed. Following Cornell Lab's instructions for birds involved in window collisions, I went inside and prepared a shoebox. When I came back out, she had pulled herself together a little, but was still clearly dazed.



I put her in the box. She didn't seem injured, but was unresponsive to being handled.



I took the box inside and left her to recover for about half an hour.



When I took her back outside (she had pecked the box a couple of times, so I figured (hoped!) she was ready to go) and took off the lid, she immediately jumped out but then just sat there.


I put my hand down and she climbed on to it. She sat there for a few minutes, gradually getting perkier and letting me take a few pics:









And then she pushed off and flew over into the bushes at the woods' edge. Another minute and she was gone.



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1 Comments:

At 11:27 AM, June 30, 2015 Anonymous Picky had this to say...

How wonderful to have her sitting on your hand.

As to her jumping out of the box, perhaps she was Irish and found that Union Jack culturally offensive?

 

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