In late August, on a Sunday afternoon, I stepped out to refill the bird feeders in the back yard. I didn’t even notice her at first, the poor creature was so still. I was right on top of her, taking down the platform feeder, when I finally noticed the tiny black-capped chickadee struggling frantically. She was caught in the tangle of netting and wire I had foolishly bunched on top of the squirrel baffle.
The netting and wire were a harebrained scheme to deter squirrels. I know, I know: nothing deters squirrels. But I, still naive, had tried. Having spotted the wily critters in the past gobbling down my luxury bird seed, I had installed, on an extra-tall pole, two—two!—kinds of squirrel baffle, the cylindrical kind topped with the cone-shaped kind. Never mind. The squirrels laughed their chattery laughs and easily leapt right onto the cone baffle. Not from a nearby tree, from the ground. Once on the baffle, they would clamp onto the tubular feeder or climb right into the platform feeder and chow down.
I’ll teach them! I thought. It’s woman against nature now. I have engaged the epic struggle! And I have a large frontal lobe and opposable thumbs! I started bunching pieces of chicken wire, and later deer netting, on top of the cone baffle to create a kind of razor-wire defense barrier. It never occurred to me—dummy!—that a bird might get caught. After all, birds flutter in from above, they perch on the feeders, not below them. I guess I figured the birds would be fine.
Yet here she was now, this tiny chickadee, her tail, one wing—it was hard to tell—tangled in the deer netting. This was all my fault.
I stood there trying to figure out what to do. I’ve never been so close to a wild bird before. She eyed me with one beady black eye, fluttering and twisting pathetically. I went to work, murmuring to her as soothingly as I could. Oh you poor thing! I will help. I’m so sorry. Don’t worry.
I tried to pull the netting—gently—to see where she was caught, how I could loosen her. She turned her beak toward me half-heartedly and took a poke at me. I didn’t take it personally. She was just scared. And anyway, I deserved it.
It was clear I would need scissors to cut the netting. I’ll be right back! Don’t worry! I’ll get you free!
I trotted into the house and grabbed the perfect tool: embroidery scissors. They’re small and sharp and maneuverable. I trotted back out and got calmly to work.
I wonder what she was thinking, in her chickadee thoughts. She wasn’t crying out for help. Maybe she was reflecting on the nature of struggle, the struggle of nature. Or cursing the systems of unjust domination (mine) that had trapped her, so alone and helpless against the vast forces of human control in her world. Chickadees are usually such cheery, spunky little things. Aldo Leopold called them “small bundles of large enthusiasms.” They’re sociable and vocal and sometimes even seem to pose for photographs. Other birds depend on their calls, which compose a complex language that human researchers are still discovering how to parse.
Yet this one was silent and terrified, all her joy stolen by my foolishness. Perhaps she was almost resigned to her fate. Almost—she still had enough spunk left in her to engage the struggle. She was not, of course, pondering abstract thoughts, but engaging a different intelligence, as ecophilosopher David Abram might point out—an intelligence that is sensory, embodied, and beyond human comprehension.
What a strange encounter, then, between one huge, clumsy human and this being of weightless bone and flight. How mysterious we are to each other, though we share the same world. I don’t even know for sure that she was a she. Chickadee males and females look alike, though females might be a bit smaller? Apparently, research on this is inconclusive. You have to tell by behavior, and who knows how males and females might behave differently when caught in deer netting?
For about ten minutes, I pulled gently to find points of tension, snipped carefully. She fluttered and flapped at intervals to pull free whatever she could. The tail, one wing, one tiny, delicate foot, toes as thin as embroidery floss. I only touched her once—I could feel her lightness, all feathers and heartbeat and air.
Finally, suddenly, she was free. She flew off to the tree canopy overhead. And then she was gone.
I looked for chickadees in the yard after that, but it wasn’t their season to visit feeders in late August. At that time of year, they mostly eat bugs and berries. I rarely even heard their spunky calls: chicka-dee-dee-dee. It was all sparrows and mourning doves, swarming the feeders like sharks and stuffing themselves. The goldfinches were busy with the zinnias and hyssop. Bluejays and cardinals stopped by the feeder, some of them rumpled and bare with late summer molting, as if they were showing up for lunch in their pajamas.
So I have no idea if my little chickadee recovered from her ordeal and went back to her chickadee life. I hope she’s OK.
I apologize to her again for my ill-thought-out attempt to keep those dastardly squirrels away. I’m tempted to moralize or metaphorize about our encounter, make it into some kind of parable, but somehow I don’t want to. It was what it was. I am, in a strange way, grateful though—for a few short moments when I could get close to her and, together, we could set her free.
Image credit: Schlitz Audubon Nature Center, schlitzaudubon.org
