When I went down for breakfast this morning, my wife, with somewhat unexpected excitement in her voice, told me that she had found a bird sitting in front of our garage door. It was a small bird she informed me, and it did not fly away when she walked around it to pick up the newspaper from the driveway. It was still apparently showing no signs of movement when she pressed the button next to the kitchen door to remotely close the garage door. Could the bird still be out there?
So I opened the garage door and there indeed was the bird. It was right in front of the garage door, facing the house, and it was was showing no sign of moving. The racket from the door's opening and closing right next to it had not made it change its position one bit!
What to do?! I was convinced that something was wrong with the bird. Perhaps it had fallen from a nest and had broken something. (Was that why it was resting on the driveway in that particular manner?) Should we call the humane society or some other organization that takes care of hurt animals and birds? Certainly, if the bird remained in its current location it was in danger of being killed, with many options in this regard, including being eaten up by a hawk, or even being run down by my wife if she backed her car out of the garage while forgetting the presence of the bird. I convinced myself that I needed to move the bird immediately to a safer location after which I could think of some followup action.
I put on my garden gloves and walked up to the bird. It did not move. "Poor thing," I said to myself, "It must be badly hurt." I sat down just behind it and reached my hand out to pick it up as it turned its head to look at me curiously.
The bird took off effortlessly! It flew away with no lack of energy, with seemingly no discomfort or pain. It flew away down the street flapping its wings vigorously, with not a sign of anything being wrong with it! What the heck?!
Can somebody help to identify the bird? Does anybody know enough to understand the actions of this bird?
