Life, Meet Death

My workplace is prime real estate for birds year round. In Spring, especially, birds find it perfect for building nests and raising a family. This little tale I'm about to tell, well...is actually a mini-tragedy, but kind of crazy-weird because of my proximity to the goings on.

Anyway, I was working one day with one of my close friends (co-worker), when we got this one girl customer. As my friend worked on her transaction, this little bird -- a tiny, fledgling sparrow baby, who appeared to have barely learned how to fly -- flew down onto the girl's car. There. Standing on the windshield. On the windshield wipers actually. Quite still and motionless. I should have taken a picture, but I didn't want to look like a creeper on that girl's car...

Little Sparrow (we'll call him that) couldn't find his way off the car, but eventually it managed to fly away onto the nearby curb. There, he was joined by its sibling, Little Sparrow's Sibling. View pictures below:

Little Sparrow (left) with Little Sparrow's Sibling (right).

A few minutes later, this creepy pizza business customer drove in. I took the picture above right before creepy pizza business customer drove away. This is what happened after he left:

Little Sparrow's lifeless body, unintentionally sideways.

Poor Little Sparrow, he died so young! This mini-tragedy broke my heart not only because I had just taken a picture of Little Sparrow when he was full of life, but also because it reminded me of almost a decade ago, when my younger sister and I had tried to raise a runt baby sparrow after his mother had thrown him out of their nest! We had kept him in a little crib of sorts -- a small, snack-sized, baby blue plastic box, with feminine pads for bedding material -- and I had fed him tiny wads of bread soaked in water with my pinky finger. He had started to grow a few feathers (really tiny feathers), when suddenly, he stopped breathing while I held him in my hands. Rest in peace, Cuchi (that was his name).


The story is kind of funny, if you really think about it, referring to Little Sparrow, but still a tragedy. After his death, Little Sparrow's Sibling just kind of stood there, next to his dead brother, and then learned the "survival of the fittest" lesson; Little Sparrow's Sibling flew away quick!