Tuesday, January 23, 2007

The pitter patter of little feet


This morning I was out for my walk, but didn’t get very far when I noticed a bird-shaped ball of fluff sitting on the road. It was a baby fairy-tern, which must have fallen out of its tree. The terns don’t build nests, they simply lay eggs on the branches, so fatality rate is quite high. I dashed home to get some gardening gloves, because the fluff-ball revealed a beak and an attitude when I tried to pick it up, so armed with industrial gloves I carried it home. Its first home was an ice-cream tub, but when the bird had stopped quivering and become accustomed to its surroundings, it was quite lively and tried to get out. We settled it into a much bigger box, with two soft toys for company. It likes to sit on the highest point of the soft toys it can find. It can’t fly yet but used its wings as arms for balance, while it shuffled around the box. We tried to feed it a mooshed up raw golden smackaroo inner, but were unsuccessful today. Apparently they eat mackerel, so tomorrow I’m going to have to try find some. It’s absolutely lovely, covered with downy fluff which is starting to fall out. It’s also completely tame now and loves sitting in or on our hands, or will sit on our shoulder while we walk around the house. It’s just too precious, and we are praying for its survival! Hopefully we will see it mature to adulthood - the beautiful white fairy tern.

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