Meet Friend

It was a cold early February morning when I discovered an injured Evening Grosbeak at the base of my back porch steps. I did not examine the bird closely. I simply assumed that it had flown against a window and had knocked itself senseless. In the past when this had occurred, I'd achieved a fairly high survival rate by simply providing a warm, protected spot for my patient to recover for a few hours. However, temperatures had not been quite as cold as they were on this day. I placed the injured bird inside a box on the porch, nested in a coiled towel, hoping for the best.

Grosbeaks are among my favorite "people." My late husband gave them the nickname "porch parrots" after the eruption of Mt. St. Helens knocked the migrating flock off their flyway. By the hundred, they came to our porch in search of food; burned, blinded, injured. From that year on, they always returned, having mapped the house as a reliable and abundant feeding ground. Those great green beaks packed away 400 pounds of black-oil sunflower seed during a record six-week interval. "Porch parrots" indeed!

As I observed my small patient throughout the day, I grew worried. He was not responding as well as I'd have liked. The forecast promised an overnight low in the teens, so in the interest of making the poor creature comfortable, I moved box and bird into the garage for the night, but the more I thought about it, the less satisfied I was with that solution. At bedtime, I brought him indoors in the box, put him in my back bedroom and placed a window screen over the open lid, with food and water available. "This story is going to have a sad ending," I said to myself when I turned in, but such was not the case. When I got up in the morning, the bird was still alive, sitting right where he'd been when I went to bed. No change.

Thus began what turned into one of the most memorable experiences of my life. Meet Friend, a gentle little soul who had a long journey back to health.