Sometimes I feel like Marlin Perkins…except for the part where he loved getting up close to the animals…

I cannot make up some of the stuff that happens to me in an average day. And while there are often little lessons and God-glimpses in the unusual circumstances that tend to circulate around me, sometimes I think they just happen to make us laugh. 

So for kicks today, I want to share a little tale from the annals of my “Wild Kingdom” walk through this earth. 

While I do think animals and such are interesting and certainly are part of God’s wonderful creation; except for dogs I prefer all of them to be seen at a distance, such as birds, bugs, jungle cats..etc. 

Or never seen… such as reptiles and vermin of all kinds. 

That being said, if you are like me and can not abide snakes and mice and all their familia, don’t worry. You can proceed with safety in reading this. They, thankfully, behaved themselves and remained out of sight, out of mind for this story.  

But yesterday as I was working in the pollinator garden Russ made for me, imagine my surprise after twenty minutes of planting and weeding along the fence line when I stepped back into the yard, leaned over to pick up the debris and as I raised my head, this is what was staring me in the face…

I let out a yelp, and if our neighbors heard from their back porch, they gave me no aid. So I took a picture and texted it to Russ. 

Because he loves me, eventually he wandered out to find me. 

At this point, the bird had stared me down for some length of time and had begun to open its mouth. As if I was going to also dig up one of those detestable wiggly worms and stick it in its beak. 

It was obviously young and I thought it was stuck in the fence. 

Russ said all I probably needed to do was poke it with the end of a rake to loosen it. 

Apparently the bird is not the only one who doesn’t know me very well. 

I just looked back at him for a while with my beak firmly closed and finally he said…unless you want me to do it. 

Well, yes. Yes I do want you to do it. 

Since I didn’t want to watch the mess, I headed to the far back yard with a bag of soil and some impatiens to plant in the pots under the pine trees. 

In a few minutes he called me and when I returned, we had a new situation. 

When he got the rake close, the bird had jumped to its senses and was now perched on the top of the fence. 

At this point we also discovered one of its siblings who had not fared as well and was lying in state right along the fence line that I had just been weeding.

What in the world is the matter that I didn’t see either of these critters???

We used the rake to knock down the empty nest in the corner of our bathroom window ledge from whence all of this mess started and then we carefully scooped the deceased into the bucket we had dumped the nest into. 

Russ handed me the rake so he could step over the fence and he no sooner landed both feet on the grass than the living bird decides to take flight and lands right on the base of my rake. 

Inches away from my feet. 

I let out another yelp. 

I think the neighbors had retreated inside by now and Russ just laughed. He may have said something about how I seem to be a magnet for the animal population.  

Dropping the rake, I decided I was completely done with the bird, the pollinator garden and set my sights to finish planting my impatiens. 

Before I could take five steps, there was a fluttering and sure enough, the baby bird must have imprinted me as its mother and it flitted along just ahead of me the whole way back.

I was so irritated and but still had to laugh as I could hear my husband calling me Dr Doolittle from behind.

Well, if the good Doctor could talk to the animals, I would give it a try.

I told the bird that it would be in its best interest if it found someone else to raise it the rest of the way. I guess it understood because with one last flutter it disappeared up in the trees and hopefully it has a wonderful life. 

Somewhere far, far away from me.