Finding a Baby Bird

Written by M. Elmore in March of 2018 and edited by her teacher (used with permission from student)

I slowly opened the gate only aware of what lies before me.  I hear dogs growling behind me, and the next thing I know it’s gone…

It was a cloudy afternoon on a farm twelve miles outside of Britton, South Dakota, during the summer of 2017. I could hear birds chirping in the sky and cows mooing in the distance. The sky was grey and full of monstrous clouds. It was around one o’clock in the afternoon, and I was going outside for my daily task of bottle feeding a calf named Daisy. On that specific day, it was jacket weather. The trees were blowing against the wind, as if it was going to storm. So, I dressed in the right apparel, warm pants and a coat. The air smelled of rain, dust, and dirt. I slowly walked to the metal gate that led to the calf and, before I opened the gate, I noticed a baby bird on the ground chirping, clearly unable to fly.

I was so happy that I was shaking with excitement, like I was on cloud-nine. I was mostly thinking about my desire to help the small, little bird. I was reluctant to pick it up because I was afraid it was going to bite me, so I took off my coat and held it in one hand, ready to use it to scoop up the bird. My other hand was on the gate, ready to pull it open. Behind me, I heard dogs growling and barking like they’ve never seen a bird before. I planned to open the gate a little bit and go into the pen and then close it so the dogs wouldn’t get in. So, I attempted to do just that. I carefully opened the gate a little bit, aware of the dogs behind me. I started to walk into the pen when the dogs rammed into me running lightning fast. I was so surprised about how bad they wanted to get to the bird that it took me a second to snap out of it. As soon as I looked up I saw the dogs in a small circle around the bird. The Saint Bernard, named Bella, was the first one to make a move and ate it in one bite. I was so mad that I was clenching my fists, but then I felt sorry for the helpless bird because it had no way of defending itself and it couldn’t fly to get away. All of those emotions eventually turned into disappointment after I started thinking about how cool it would have been to have a cute, small, baby bird as a pet.

Later on, I got over it and realized that keeping a wild bird as a pet wasn’t a bright idea, or maybe it was just bad luck. Not gonna lie, I was frustrated for a while, but I guess it wasn’t the dogs fault for trusting their instincts. Although, it would have been an interesting and fascinating experience to help an animal, like that bird. One thing I did learn throughout all of this is to put the dogs in the garage first.