I was sitting out on my back patio, enjoying a relatively temperate mid-June evening, when all of a sudden a bird zoomed by my right ear and attempted to fly through my back door* .  The little critter bounced off the door and rolled into some nearby ground cover.  Stunned and convulsing**, I wondered if I should do the humane thing and crush its skull in.

After a bit, it settled down and just sat on the ground, breathing heavy.  I got a glove and picked him off the ground and put it where Zoe couldn’t get at it.

Here it is.

Adorable, no?  I think it’s a baby cardinal.  But how could anyone possibly know that for sure?

It was about this time I started hearing a racket from the tree above me.  Lots of loud tweeting^^^ and this fellow zipping back and forth across my backyard airspace as if looking to feed that delicious worm he has in his mouth to his only little baby.

Now this part might sound mean.  But I wanted to see if the little guy could still fly.  So I picked him up and kinda tossed him into the air.  He managed a short flight to my gutters, where he stayed for a few more minutes. 

A little bit later he was gone, hopefully munching on that worm that dad brought home.

*the back door of my house, let’s try to be serious, people

** The bird was stunned and convulsing, not me.

^^^Social media is huge with the feathered folk