Baby bird

"I don't know if I want to show you this," Alex said yesterday evening, pointing at a tiny bird hopping about in front of the house. It had feathers, but couldn't quite fly. It wasn't injured though. I had no idea what to do about it, and the internet chose to be down for the evening so we managed to get it into a little cardboard box with a bit of grass and I vaguely remembered something about bread soaked in milk and managed to feed it some. It was so sweet - it would only take it if I held it above its head like a mother bird must do. I rang a friend who seems like the kind of person who would know what to do (handily, our French mobile network also seemed to be down so we had to use an English pay and you go mobile) and he said to take it inside, feed it like we had been doing and put a lightbulb in the box with it.

I got it to eat some more food and checked on it a few times during the night. It was like having a newborn again. We were all delighted that it made it through the night - but I couldn't get it to eat this morning. The internet was back up, so I looked up what to do and there were mixed messages (of course) but overall it seemed the best thing to do would be to put it back outside and apparently its mother will come and feed it on the ground.

So I put it outside and it immediately scuttled under a pallet of roof tiles. I went of the gym convinced I had traumatised it and fretted about it all the way through Body Pump. But when I got back it was out from under the tiles and hopping around - and just a minute ago I saw the mother come down and feed it. So perhaps I did the right thing after all last night. I know it's just one little bird, but I'm so pleased.