Our walks around the estate recently have become guided nature walks for my two children. My four year old ever the inquisitive member of the tour group, always asking questions, never satisfied with the basic knowledge I have offered. “I don’t know, actually. I’ll have to look that up,” I say, again.
He has become fascinated with everything from snails and their epic adventures across the pavements to the dancing of the parakeets in the trees, birds which I too have always been fascinated by. Much too beautiful to be in London, I have often thought, amongst the crows and the pigeons. They seem more like something you would keep in a cage to admire in your home, a bird that should be somewhere exotic and warmer maybe.
I first spotted them when I moved to Kingston for University. They took up residence in Bushy Park, London’s second largest park, which stretches along the river from my old halls of residence on Kingston Bridge, down to Hampton Court Palace. Amongst the students, there was the urban myth that the parakeets were there after escaping a film set in West London years ago. Apparently there are other rumours too: Jimi Hendrix was alleged to have released a pair in Carnaby High Street, but whatever the rumour I was surprised to see them on the estate we moved to in Orpington, over the other side of London. I felt quite lucky, too despite the fact that they are fairly widespread across the UK.
I am eager to show him these beautiful birds that live on our doorstep. On a walk one day, I hear them chirping in the tree above us. We stop. It is hard to see the parakeets at first. Their bright green feathers camouflaged in the trees’ green plumage. “Look!” I scream, after catching a glimpse of one flying against the blue of the sky, only for it to be hiding amongst the leaves again by the time my son turned his head in the right direction. When we do eventually see one, he asks “What are birds like to stroke, Mummy?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I have never held one.”
But little did I know that one day soon, that would all change.
Friday night and I’m on a train. He’s beside me in a cardboard box, an old shoe box, but with holes pierced through parcel tape I have wound round to stop the wet sections from caving in under his weight. It is tied together with a string.
It was 6pm yesterday when he hit the upstairs window, so hard I later found an imprint in the dust on the glass, wings spread out, head turned to the side. There was a loud thud. I jumped up from the table where me and the kids were colouring in, when I saw the twitching green body lying on the balcony floor, I went to close the blinds, not wanting my sons to see this beautiful creature take his last breath.
They crowded around him, the glass of our large sliding doors separating them from the injured bird. They cooed as he shuffled on the floor, using his beak to put himself into a sitting position, stumbling as if drunk. Dazed, I thought, perhaps he wasn’t going to die after all. On my phone, I searched and found a local charity’s number. They told me to bring him inside, to keep him safe and that someone would call me.
I hope that I am helping him, yet I know I am taking him away from his family, his mother, his home.
I thought of the Bluey episode, where they find an injured bird in their garden, and immediately take him to the vets. 6pm, everything would be closed. I can’t just get in a car. That pang of guilt of not being able to drive surfacing again. I messaged the charity my details, a picture of the bird - they messaged back:
It’s a baby.
Someone will be in touch.
Don’t call the Vets, Don’t call the RSPCA.
All we could do then, was wait.
In that episode Bandit is cool and calm, but I am flapping about, stressed and worried that this bird will either become victim to a near-by balcony-jumping cat, or worse my children will hurt it. This beautiful, beautiful bird.
With a cleaning cloth, I held him tightly around his wings and managed to place him in a cardboard box. Even under the cloth, I could feel how smooth his wings were.
Later, when we gave it chance to fly away, it hit the walls of our balcony, and tried to shuffle under the plastic partitions between us and our neighbours on each side. One has an elderly chocolate Labrador, the other is a young man living alone. I wondered if it was a good thing that he landed on our balcony of all of them.
The next morning, we still hadn’t heard from the charity and with the kids at nursery I took him to a wider space; a small green to the side of our house, lined with other similar style houses. A green I hoped he would be familiar with. I let him go and he soared. I hoped that after being stuck in a box for 12 hours, he may have regained his strength, or come to his senses - that he would be able to fly again. But as he gained height he swerved and dipped, crashing straight into a neighbour’s window and landed in their back garden.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid, I thought. I’ve made it worse. How silly I’m going to feel telling the charity that I lost the bird I was looking after, or worse still, I ensured he took another hit to the head, this time it may have finished him off.
Except it hadn’t.
I knocked on the door and whilst the man who lived there was luckily in, he had no idea about any bird.
“Did you not hear it?” I asked.
He offered to let me into the garden to see and after a while I found him sat up again, back towards us his green plumage disguised in front of a bush. I grabbed him more confidently this time and placed him into the box with ease.
He didn’t resist. Does he trust me? I thought.
The man suggested a farm near by that may take him in, again I would need to drive. I would wait until my partner finishes work. Perhaps I could convince him to go. The neighbour seemed to care, he wanted to know he’d be okay. I was comforted in that moment that I wasn’t being silly, trying to keep this bird from harm, for wanting to help.
As I left the house I got the text from the charity. There was a rehabber, she lived in Brockley. She will look after him. I just had to get him there.
Later that evening, I secured the box and walked towards the train station. He was quiet, and still. I was quiet too, thinking about how ridiculous it all was, that I was travelling for an hour to a place I didn’t know to meet a person I didn’t know to give them a bird that wasn’t mine, all in good faith that it was the right thing to do.
It was getting dark as I came out of the station at St Johns, somewhere between Brockley and Deptford, apparently, and I walked up the hill checking the map on my phone. It was quiet, with not many people about. A moped zoomed past me and I instinctively held onto my handbag and side-stepped away from the road.
I realised I could get mugged, or assaulted. This is London in the evening, what was I thinking? I had no idea where I was. I had no idea where was safe and where wasn’t. I would have to walk back, get the train home. I had no idea when the next train would be. The whole situation was so far removed from what I would normally be doing on a Friday night.
I’m trying to help, I reasoned. I am doing the right thing, but all the while I questioned it, asking myself why, why was I so bothered about this bird?
As I climbed the hill towards the address, the road was lined with huge tall victorian townhouses, more built up than at home, than his home.
I passed the occasional tree where I heard birds chirping, he chirped back.
When I arrived at the house, two fat cats followed me up to the door, they settled on the pavement to devour what looked like a broken up sponge cake. Anxious, I called to make sure it is the right place. While I waited, I spied an old bird cage.
As I handed him over, the lady didn’t ask many questions. “A baby,” she said. “He’ll be fine here.” I hesitated to leave with so many questions I wanted to ask. I wanted to ask her what she’ll do, how she will look after him, has she done this before? Will she bring him back to Orpington? Will she tell me what happens to him?
Instead I smiled, I thanked her and I walked away.
A sense of relief washed over me. He’s safe now, I thought, he’s no longer my responsibility. But the question I really needed answering still hung in the air, the cats in the back of my mind.
Have I done the right thing?
I wondered later if it is motherhood that has done this to me? Left me with this unbearable sense of responsibility to any living thing that crosses my path. In that 24-hour period I had that bird in my care, I felt solely responsible. I considered at one point if I could be the one to look after it. Could I just get a bird cage? Would I know what to do?
Mothering instincts are universal across all species, I would have thought. That sense to keep something alive, to keep it warm, to keep it safe. I had doubts that I would be doing right by him taking him to a whole new part of town, but on reflection, I am sure I did the right thing. Although, if I had kept the bird, he would have remained in his home, I am not the person to look after it - my hands, as passers-by often say, are already full, the sense of responsibility for a third being was overwhelming, even for that short time.
I cried when I walked back towards the station that day without the box in my hand.
I felt like I had failed him, that I couldn’t help him, I had to get someone else to. But perhaps that is a reflection of me needing to know my limits. It was never going to be me that could save him, but perhaps it was right that it was me who got him to someone who could save him. After all, if he had landed in our neighbour’s balcony, it’s possible he may not have survived a scuffle with the dog, or our other neighbour who may not have even noticed he was there for days. I had done the bit that I needed to do. I had taken responsibility. I had found him help.
In the Bluey episode, the bird dies and what we see is how the children later replay what happened in detail, mimicking both the calm decisive action of the dad along with the angry outburst he makes at a passing driver when they are trying to cross the road. The message being that children learn through what they are shown rather than what they are told. I wonder then whether I had made a good impression on the boys. I may have panicked in my reaction at first, I was anxious at the fact they wanted to play with him and couldn’t see that he was injured, I didn’t deal with it very calmly at all but overall I hope I taught them something. That we should take responsibility when it comes our way and that we should take care of animals and living things, and perhaps too the experience has made me see that their wonder of nature should be cherished and nurtured.
A wonder which I hope to keep alive for some time.
The Charity that helped was London Wildlife Protection. They specialise in helping wild birds in and around London.
London Wildlife Protection
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I love the parakeets around London. I missed them during winter and was skipping like a child when I heard them for the first time when they returned this spring.
This was such a lovely journey to take with you.
Awww, Kylie-Ann, you definitely saved that bird and did the right thing! I know the feeling of being helpless when it comes to animal rescues. Not everyone would have been as willing and determined as you were! I wouldn't be surprised if that beautiful little bird doesn't pay you a visit one day to say thank you.