Adventures with Burt the baby pigeon.

Rascal caught him. I imagine it wasn’t much of a fight, because the poor thing could barely walk let alone fly. He probably fell out of the tree at a very opportune moment for Rascal. Of course, wanting to share his prize with his Mommy, he brought Burt (who didn’t have a name at that point) into the house, and dropped him in the dining room.

Pearl was all worked up into a fluff-ball state. Her tail looked like a squirrel's. She was in the most animalistic state I have ever seen. She hissed at me, threatening me when I got too close to her bird. How it became her bird, when Rascal was the one who brought it in, I will never know.

When you grab a cat by the scruff of its neck it really does become paralyzed, even with an adult cat. When I got them both safely behind doors, I was able to check out Burt a little more extensively. I could see that he was a baby or fledgling. He was all gray with long, skinny, little yellow feathers sticking out all over. His beak was not fully developed. He had a hurt wing, which was a little bloody, from where Rascal had bit into him. After pacing the floor for a minute, I thought I should try putting him outside to see if he could fly. I grabbed a dish-cloth, which was the suggestion of one of the CWWs I work with the last time Rascal brought in a critter, the possum. I gently threw the towel over him. He was relatively easy to pick up; he didn’t even try to bite me. He had a really cute squeak, not a coo. I took him out to the front porch to see what he would do. But he just stood there, looking very confused (can a bird really have expressions?) As I went toward him he scooted back. He was about to fall off the balcony. So, quick thinking, I got him outside in the back balcony, which isn’t accessible except by the back sliding door. Or by other birds, as I was soon to find out. I put him in an old wooden wine box, standing up on end, sitting in the corner. I was hoping that he would heal and then fly away on his own.

After about a day I went and bought birdseed for him and gave him a bowl of water. This is stupid, but I don’t think I would have thought of water; that was Paul’s suggestion. At some point, after becoming attached, I decided the pigeon needed a name. I named him Burt. Come to find out: Burt, of Burt and Ernie, has a love of pigeons. Who knew?

The cats didn’t figure out Burt was on the balcony right away. When they did figure it out, the sliding glass door became like their own personal TV, with their own personal reality TV show. Burt really didn’t do much. Regardless, the cats sat, glued to his every move. It took him about a day to figure out that the birdseed was to eat and the water to drink. That Burt was a shitting machine! There was bird shit all over the bottom of box, getting stuck to his tail feathers. Yuck.

For the most part, Burt didn’t do much besides eat, drink, shit, and sleep. After he had been out there a few days, my friend Kelley and I were sitting in front of Rascal and Pearl’s TV. Burt got up, walked slowly across the edge of the balcony, and sat down on the corner. He sat there for 15 minutes, watching the world go by, got back up and walked back to his “nest.”

After he had been on the balcony about 5 days, I began to worry. I didn’t see him walking around and he seemed to always have his wings out in different awkward positions. Almost like he didn’t quite know what to do with them. Big birds started coming and stealing his food. He hid behind and under the plant shelf. He seemed terrified and very unhappy.

After calling a number of veterinarians and wildlife rescue organizations, I finally found one in Oakland who agreed to take him. I carefully placed him in a box with a towel for padding. He stopped squeaking only after I put him down. I drove up in to the Oakland hills to a house on the side of a steep valley. The front drive was littered with cages of all sizes and shapes. A young woman came to the door with a baby squirrel on her shoulder. As we stood in the dining room, he tried to jump over to my shoulder, but she stopped him. I think she may have had him wrapped in her robe the entire time I was there, preventing him from leaping around. I looked out to the back balcony because I heard a commotion and there were three fawns! They were super cute, white speckled, baby deer about the size of medium dogs. It appeared they wanted to come in and play. She told me if she let them in they would jump all over us. I wasn’t daunted. Apparently the Oakland Police Department brought them to her a few days before, having found them abandoned. She also had two hummingbirds in a cage. One had just learned to fly. She offered to give me a tour the next time I am there. I figure that I will definitely be seeing her again, given the hunting nature of my cat Rascal.

I called back a few days later to see how Burt had made out. He is fine! Burt was taken to Ohlone Wildlife Rescue in Newark and is now flying with a flock of rescued pigeons.

I am so relieved to know he is okay and now learning how to fly with his own kind!