It*s been a busy few days for HEART!
i got a call from the Co-op two days ago.
A woman had seen a pair of Flickers in the roadside ditch at the bottom of the hill in front of Little Trib on the main road.
One had flown away but the other had their wings splayed in the ditch.
It sounded like the Flicker had likely been hit by a car.
i right away start fretting about getting them to MARS.
It is getting late in the day & i*m not sure there will be many people leaving the Island & how long will i have to wait to get this poor Bird on its way to MARS?
Flickers are very high stress Birds.
Perhaps they will say to just hold them quietly & see what happens in the morning.
This is all going through my mind as i prepare.
All my gear is put away inside now so it doesn*t get damp & mouldy, which means it takes a bit of time to get everything ready to go.
i fret about not being able to get out the door faster.
i*m not a drop everything & run kinda gal.
i JUST got home & unpacked the car & started my fire.
So it takes me a good half hour to get out the door.
She said the third hydro pole, so i park beyond that & walk back.
When i get to the area, a Flicker runs away & squeezes through the fence into the Cow field beyond & flies away.
i figure this is the second Flicker reported, so i look for the injured one.
A puddle of poop catches my eye in that area, but i am not finding a splayed Flicker.
i walk up & down that roadside, picking up plastic as i go.
A nice woman pulls over & offers to help me search.
We don*t find the Flicker & she drives off.
i am continuing my search when i hear my name being called.
Yay, the women who first spotted the Flicker are walking back up the road from the Co-op!
They are pointing to where they had seen the Bird & it turns out to be where i saw the Flicker flying away!
So perhaps the poor Bird had been stunned & was recovering & my arrival startled them away.
i realize now that if i had gotten out the door faster, it wouldn*t have given the Flicker time to recover on their own & i would have had to capture, very stressful for the injured Bird.
So, hopefully this was a happy ending.
The women were GREATLY relieved that i had shown up & that things had ended like this & that now they knew who to call when something like this happened.
& i am relieved that they showed up just in time to show me where the Bird had been.
That wouldn*t have happened if i had been faster getting out the door.
A second event happened yesterday.
i was going up the road, watching the tail lights of the car ahead of me when suddenly my peripheral vision was caught by something on the left in the ditch!
It was the legs of a small Deer, kicking.
They had been on their left side & had kicked themselves over to their right, facing the woods & away from the road.
There was slight movement, but then i wasn*t sure the poor Fawn was alive.
i wasn*t at all sure what to do.
So i carried on with what i had planned to do & checked again on my way home.
i walked up & down, up & down, looking.
Animals & Birds blend in so well with Nature that even if you are looking right at them you don*t see them.
So i gave that side of the road a good thorough search, but no sign of the Fawn.
Once again, perhaps the Fawn had had time to recover & walk off into the woods.
Let*s hope, poor thing.
Now today i get another call!
Two women are new to their Hornby home & have arrived to find a dead Fawn in their greenhouse!
They are very upset, feeling it is their fault that the Fawn got trapped in there & died.
But i tell them that from my little experience, this is a time of year when the young Fawns often aren*t thriving on their own.
& it isn*t the first time one has curled up into a dry safe place to die.
So perhaps it wasn*t their fault.
i said i would come & remove the body for them, as they aren*t up to the task, feeling so upset that this has happened.
Heading out to do this shortly.
Phew!
Three days, three wild life concerns!
