random thoughts – Day 1,142 – (Wednesday) – normal and not

It seemed like a normal day. As in, pre-pandemic level normal. I forgot to mail my niece’s birthday card in a timely manner (tragically back to normal) and had a pre-work stop at the post office. It will arrive late. Work involved a gathering in the executive suite with coffee, muffins, bagels, fruit, and people milling about and chatting. Being Wednesday, our office was full of people and abuzz with activity. 

View from the dental chair.

There was an early departure from work for a dental appointment, scored yesterday when there was a cancellation opening with my favorite hygienist who cleaned my teeth twice a year for several years pre-pandemic. My scheduled appointment with another hygienist for last week had to be changed when it became obvious the week was just too busy, and the first available appointment was in September. 

I hadn’t seen this hygienist since her first maternity leave before the pandemic. She has two children now. Every time I saw a different hygienist it felt like I was cheating on her. Our conversation resumed as if the interruption of the past three years never happened. 

At home, Winston was happy and perky and ready for his dinner. Ever so briefly, there was a flashback to the time before his diabetes and lost vision. He went outside before his dinner, and that’s where things took a turn.

Win paused for a second or two to sniff the paved walk before taking a couple more steps to let out a healthy stream. While standing on the top step waiting for him, I looked at the spot he smelled. It was a very small, very young, very hairless something. There were two tiny feet, two stumpy front appendages, a round little belly area, and skin with no feathers. It didn't seem like the shape of a mouse, and then I finally noticed a tiny yellow beak and realized it was (had been) a bird.

As Win stepped away from his completed business, I saw another dead baby bird near the fresh pee spot. About a foot away, there was another dead baby bird. And then another in a patch of violet leaves. 

Two tiny corpses. So sad.

Four deceased innocent hatchlings on the front yard. At eight to ten feet away, they seemed too far from the nest over the drain pipe to have fallen from there, but that was just a guess. To land where they did, it seemed they would have to be tossed, each one further than the others. The only other time I’ve seen a dead baby bird was during the pandemic when a larger baby bird corpse was found on the driveway right below the drainpipe and the nest. 

There are often the sounds of birds scratching in the gutter. Amateur detective mode activated and I trudged upstairs to open the bedroom window to look into the gutters below for a nest. There was nothing that seemed like a nest.

After the discovery of death on the lawn, there were online searches for causes for dead baby birds and what to do with dead baby birds. The results were mostly not helpful. In the end, the tiny corpses were scooped up with the poop scooper and set in a plastic bag, covered with some dried grass and the lone white violet picked from the yard in some sort of pseudo burial. The bag was tied up and set into the trash bin. Had a trowel or shovel been handy, there would have been a proper burial and I feel a little awful about that. Poor dead baby birds. They are definitely not a normal sight at The BungaLowell.