***Turning Points in a Sparrow Life and Yours

Turning Points in a Sparrow Life and Yours

All the sparrows abandoned those many nests inside the peafowl pen (where all the bird food is!) sandwiched between the metal roof and the wood slats of a horse carrier that fit over a truck bed. Snow is on the ground; it is early May. I am hardly ever here; I come to inspect the cleanliness of the feeders, at dusk. A frog is in the dirt. I pick it up. It has a beak; it is a baby bird! A tiny neonate. It will be three or four days before its eyes are open; it has no feather tracks. Omigod!

I call Leslie, who is the mama swami of baby birddom. Leslie does surgery on eggs--something no vet dreams of. Leslie handles rescued eagles; they attack viciously and have learned no commands! My call phases her not; she speaks all the Lakota dialects, is a wise woman indeed.

Leslie tells me I have to feed this chunk of protoplasm every two hours around the clock for six weeks. Omigod! With no equipment – not even a thermometer at first, for the temperature in the mite's pet carrier or for the food that had to be exactly 105 degrees. Omigod! I acquire a thermometer in record time.

Now I know how hard bird parents work. The little fella goes into a coma at about the fourth hour of no feeding. Panic city. I am the mother of a birdlet. I temporarily name him Turkey because I have to stuff him, with a glass syringe, to feed him. Human babies dribble too, I am told. I hold him under the faucet to remove the muck, and am severely scolded by mama bird swami.

I think I am going to turn him loose when he is strong enough, but Turkey becomes his permanent name when he decides the kittens are members of his flock and sticks his head out of the pet taxi to play with them. Sigh. Then there is his language barrier: Turkey speaks sparrow with a terrible human accent. When I bring his pet carrier outdoors, his community hisses and boos him: They scream cruelly, their intentions as clearly deliberate as the kittens' weren't.

What begins with such a desperate situation for the little guy (and he is a guybird) develops into quite a turning point. Turkey is happy. Turkey is the happiest creature on the planet. And not only is Turkey the happiest creature on the planet, but he is very near 7 years old. Sparrows outdoors live two breeding seasons which is 18 months to two years. That's all. No sparrow on record has lived 7 years: Turkey is setting a world record, as far as known statistics go. Cornell University is following Turkey's story, as a result of Leslie's ties to that place: coincidence!

Furthermore, Turkey himself is a turning point in birddom's welfare. Imagine having a serious illness when you weigh half an ounce in an area where veterinarians treat horses and cows, and where a small dog is 45 pounds--an area where birds are for eating. Turkey's poops are green and liquid. I remember some pullet duck eggs some idiot put into an incubator years ago, and how I treated the last of those victims hatching from bloody infected eggs with fantastically high doses of echinacea in both their food and water extract, non-alcohol, in their water, and powder in their grain). They survived and eventually thrived. (Reference my article, Echinacea for Birds and Poultry.) So I give the sparrow the same drastic treatment. He lives! So from then on—5 years ago-- I have put 3 drops of echinacea extract into Turkey's 3-ounce water bowl most of the time. This may be what lengthens his life. Had I not remembered the hideous fate of the duck hatchlings, would Turkey still be alive?

Cornell University has a research project devoted to administering echinacea in various amounts to various avians that are going extinct, when there are many health problems, at various stages of their lives. It seems to be panning out that echinacea is a powerful benefit in both the prevention and the treatment of avian illnesses!

I'll drink to that, with 3 drops of echinacea in my glass!

Perhaps you have created a turning point in the life, or lives, of other creatures that you don't even know about. Perhaps your own life benefits from some past misadventure of your own or others?

UPDATE 7-11-11: Turkey set a world's record for sparrow longevity in May of '11 and is beginning his FIFTH lifetime. Sparrows' average life expectancy is only 18 to 24 months in the wild, and the previous world's record, Cornell said, was seven years! Photos of him are on Facebook under my name.