 |
| bird on a wire |
I'm on a roll with my challenges lately, even if I'm only half ticking or repeating them.
Today, as I was pottering around unpacking bags and stashing gear away after our weekend adventures, I noticed a little commotion in the lounge as I was passing. All the animals seemed interested - the focus of their interest quickly became clear, when I found a swallow flying around the lounge!
Loz was on the arm of the sofa, looking for a chance to leap, and the bird was suitably panicked, flying round the room in desperation, whilst Jazz and Maisie watched with interest.
My entering the room only served to panic the bird more, and push it towards the far windows, even though I tried to keep low to give it passage above my head...
It flew into the window by my desk, and dropped down onto the window sill. I dashed over to open the window for it to escape, but somehow Loz beat me there...
I swear she has the reflexes of a cat!
Before I could intervene, Loz had the swallow in her mouth, and made to depart with her prize. I blocked her exit, and hassled her into putting the little bird down, whereupon it immediately tried to fly away. As Loz began to paw (claw!) at it, I grabbed her and pulled her away, and the swallow took to the air again.
This time it flew into the opposite window, but with better anticipation, I just about caught Loz before she got there...holding her away (as she wriggled frustratedly), I opened the window and tried to nudge the swallow out.
Unfortunately, it panicked and made a dash for the darkness and cover behind the curtains...and then dropped down behind the sofa before taking refuge in a dusty corner behind the bookcase.
I shooed all of the animals out, shut the door, opened all the windows, and cleared the furniture out of the way. Once done, I took this quick photo (I had the wrong lens on, natch), as the bird had clearly decided its best bet at this point was to hunker down and hide where it was.
As I was pondering how to tempt it out, Loz came back in through the open window, so I scooped her up and threw her out again. Maisie discovered that the door had opened a couple of inches, so she snuck in too, and of course this prompted Jazz to follow on, to see what was happening.
Shooing them all out again, I used a short bamboo cane to nudge the bird out of its corner, at which point it gave me another brief, poorly lit photo-opp, as it landed on the Kinect:
 |
| bird on (x)box |
It was covered in cobwebs at this point, but seemed in reasonable shape...there were no obvious signs of injury, and it could clearly still fly.
Sneaking in closer, to try for a better photo, the swallow spooked again, and took off once more...this time, after a couple of near misses, it found the opening in the window and flew off into the great outdoors, a little shaken up no doubt, but still alive and flying...with a smidgeon of luck it should be ok to resume its life on the wing.
So I (literally) rescued a swallow from the jaws of a dangerous predator...that's at least two ticks for my rescue an animal challenge, after the successful rescue mission a few weeks ago.
Maybe I can offset this extra challenge point against some of my recent half-ticks?
Mi juego, mis reglas, I reckon!
B-)
No comments:
Post a Comment