Oh, Pluck.

Editor's note: This is a fairly long and somewhat boring account of my recent adventures. Please be aware before reading that I am a housewife and nothing exciting ever happens, so this was a Big Damn Deal for me. I'm sorry. I wrote this mostly for me.

So I have cats. I used to like cats, but over the last few years just...don't anymore. My cats are indoor/outdoor versions, and I was really grateful for them when we first moved to this house, because the garden and shed and garages were infested with mice. There was also a lovely family of rats inhabiting our neighbor's dilapidated shed and the "compost heap" she kept in her back yard. The cats very nicely and very quickly disposed of the diseased chew-partiers, lining them up in rows on the back porch. Ew. So that was good. No more rodentates.
But now the cats are bored. And well fed. So what do they turn to for entertainment? Birds, of course. We've always fed birds and love watching them at the feeders. We get swarms of finches and sparrows, and this summer had a visit from a beautiful yellow warbler and some juncoes. I likes the birdies. So do the cats. But they don't just kill them, of course. No; they go Guantanamo on their asses. I hate it. Several times I've had to put a bird out of its misery with a blow from a shovel, and I feel so awful every time. But I can't stand to see a creature in pain. We bury them under the pine tree and say nice things.
Last week while out in the yard, I heard the unmistakable angry chirp/squawk of a bird being tortured and found one of the cats with a mouthful of feathers. The bird appeared near the end, so I left the scene hoping the cat would do the honorable thing soon. An hour later, I heard the squawk again and looked out to see the wiener dog had joined the game and that the little bird, a House Finch, was not only still alive but was trying to fight. The feathers of one wing were upright, bent,all her tail feathers had been pulled out and there was a nasty puncture wound under her eye, but this little bird was still hanging in there. So I stepped in. I know you're never supposed to handle wildlife, but I couldn't stand it anymore. I scooped her up and took her inside and put her in a basket with a cup of water and a towel, hoping she would just pass in peace and quiet. I kicked the cat and admonished the dog and went back to my writing, keeping an ear out for the finch.
An hour later, I heard a rustling and found her sitting on the edge of the basket, alert but a little wobbly. She was still pretty willing to let me handle her, so I snapped this:

and called my husband to tell him to get a cage on his way home.
I spent the next two days frantically trying to figure out what to do. Googling "wild bird rehab" only sent me to bird chat forums, and I was desperate enough to register on one and post a "Help Please!" message. I got some good advice, but nothing on where I could take this bird. My vet friend doesn't do birds and had no idea. So. I figured as long as the bird was healthy, eating, drinking, pooping and hopping around I'd just keep her until she molted and grew her tail feathers back. She spent the days hunkered in my ficus tree:


And in her cage.



She seemed healthy, alert, and smart enough to hop from the ficus into the cage when I held it up in front of her. She no longer wanted to be handled, and I had to respect that even when the Girl got upset that she never got to hold her.
I started to admire this little being. For her courage, her personality and her naked bum, I named her "Pluck".

Then it was Saturday.

I woke up to find her puffed up and panting. I know from the little experience I had working as a pet store clerk in college that this is a bad bad sign. She was still drinking water, but not eating or pooping. Bad bad. Frantic, I made more phone calls. My vet friend could only suggest humane euthanasia, which I was not ready to do. Out of sheer desperation (Google was really disappointing in this area), I looked up the Great Salt Lake Audubon Society and called them, leaving a message. As a last resort, I called Backyard Birds, a little kitzchy shop that sells bird feeders and windchimes not far from my house. I told them the situation and they finally gave me a person to call.
This person was very knowledgeable and helpful, but not encouraging. See, not only do cats like to pretend to be furry little Dick Cheneys, they also harbor a gram negative bacteria in their saliva that is highly toxic to birds. She told me to keep her warm, make her comfortable and bury her in the morning. We cried, I resisted kicking the cat again and went to bed that night disappointed and sad.

Sunday morning. I postponed going into the living room where her cage was for an hour. I needed coffee and snuggling with The Girl before I could face the still little body that had harbored such a fierce big spirit. But I took a breath and went in.

She was fine. She'd beaten it. I took her cage out into the warm autumn sun and let her sit where she could see and hear her flock eating at the backyard feeder. I emailed the bird expert lady to ask her what to do now, with this now healthy and not dead bird. I think I smiled a lot.

Monday morning the Audubon guy finally called me, leaving me the number for a wildlife rehab center about an hour from my house, in Ogden. I called them and they informed me that it's illegal for me to keep her, that I should bring her to them for rehabilitation. "But she's just a little finch," I said, "do you really rehab finches?" They promised me they did.
So between that and losing her for a while when she went exploring out of the ficus and ended up behind the bookcase (she couldn't fly, remember), having escaped the now inside cats, I decided I probably wasn't the best person to be in charge of her if she was going to make it to be released. I didn't know what I was doing, and was afraid I would kill her with a stew of kindness and incompetence. And I really wanted her to be able to return to a normal finch life, not live in a cage with cats yowling below it and flutes being played in the next room and little girls screaming during a sleepover. She needed professional help.

So today, with a sad but hopeful heart, I took her to the rehab center and handed her over to people who work tirelessly and on no money to rehabilitate and release native birds back into the wild. They were positive about her prognosis, were pretty sure she injured at least one bone in her wing, but since she was flapping and getting around thought she'll heal. She now gets to spend the winter with four other rescued finches in rehab, with the goal that they'll all be better and be released in the spring.

Yes, I drove an hour and donated $20 to the WRC for a teeny little finch, of which there are hundreds in my neighborhood alone. It's just a little bird, why would I go to all this trouble?

Why? Because she was Pluck. My little Pluck. She put my pathetic life, the one I've been internally whining about, right the fuck in perspective. And I'll miss her.