Drop in Any Time

Last fall, while we were racing to get the new roof on the barn, and songbirds all over the hemisphere were racing to get south before the food supply dried up, we had a visitor briefly drop in.

What happened was this. Ken and Matt and Bill were up on the barn. Jake and I were passing metal sheets up to them, fetching tools and materials, etc. There was a thunk on the new metal roof. Something slid down it and hit the turf with a duller second thud.



It was this guy. Haven't ID'd him (probably her?) yet. I bet someone here knows what kind of LBB she is. Some kind of thrush? A female red-winged blackbird -- thanks to Megan for the ID.

So I went and picked up the limp little panting birdie, and demanded to know WTF the guys on the roof were doing to the local wildlife.

They swore that the critter had just dropped like a stone out of the clear blue sky.

I put her in a box, intending to call the wildlife rehabber in Mars and drive her over as soon as we finished for the day.

But when I took her out for photos, so I could tell Beth what kind of bird had been flung from the upper atmosphere onto my barn, she seemed to have perked up a lot from the nap.

I relaxed my grip ever-so-slightly while I was taking a burst of photos with the sports setting of my camera, and captured this in the last frame:


Remember, on long solo trips, pull over and take a nap before you crash onto someone's roof.