original little hellraisers

we found a baby bird in owen’s room today.  i suspect that it hoped along the roof and fell into our light well and then through one of the windows and somehow managed sneak into owen’s room.  all the zoo school and watching of zoobomafoo paid off, although owen was really excited he was very careful to be quite and still so he wouldn’t scare the bird.  i was torn about what to do.  i’m pretty sure the nest is in the roof tiles above our garage, but this little bird had left the nest, probably because it was ready too.  it couldn’t fly just yet but was very close to being able to.  we released the little bird in our front yard, but kept thinking “it’s going to turn into cat food”  it hopped off to the side of our walkway and i just felt like it was just to exposed.  so i scouped it up and brought it back in the house.  i went to the internets to figure out what to do and after reading a bit, it was pretty clear that i should release the bird and the parents would continue to care for it.  apparently 90% of birds continue caring for their babies on the ground.  so we brought the little bird back outside and released it in hildagard’s (our neighbors) front yard.  there’s more bushes and places for it to hide there so i thought that it would be best.  i told owen we should go inside and let the momma bird find it’s baby.  well about 20 minutes later, owen wanted to check on the baby bird.  so we go outside and what do we hear… “meow” out of the exact bush we saw the little bird hop into!!! i kid you not! a youngish cat just walks right out of the bush meowing at us sweetly.  i didn’t know what to say.  i couldn’t tell him that the cat probably just ate the baby bird, although i can’t be certain because i didn’t see any feathers or blood, so i’m hoping that we distracted the cat and the little bird hoped away to safety.