On an Impending Tragedy

The baby magpie hopped up the gravel driveway of the house where I was staying in Sweden. As he neared the back deck of the house, the black cat, Lucky, who had been lounging in a chair there, began to take notice. This would not end well. Seeing the impending encounter, the mother magpie, who had been sitting on the ridge of the house, swooped down and began squawking and flapping above the baby, hovering in protection and by way of warning to Lucky.

Happily, Lucky heeded the hoverings of the mama ‘pie and returned to his wicker chair on the back deck. I was in one of the other wicker chairs, enjoying my morning coffee and watching the drama unfold. The incident had also aroused the interest of the English Golden Retriever, Rodney, who now raised his head from his prone position next to me and peered over the edge of the decking. Now, Rodney is too sweet for this world, and he has no violence or guile in his pure but simple brain. If anything, and with the opposite intent of Lucky, Rodney wanted to make sure the baby was ok. He seemed to view the chick (is that the correct nomenclature for a baby magpie?) as more of a niece in trouble than a potential meal or plaything. No so Lucky. Even at age 14, Lucky was a lethal weapon. And this event, coming as it did in my last week of a month-long housesitting stay for a couple on vacation in Spain, gave me a moment of crisis.

The baby bird was not terribly tiny—about the size of a coffee mug—and she (I decided on the gender) had started to show some signs of the distinctive blue plumage along her flanks. And she was also quite the hopper. She bounced through the picket fence separating my house from the neighbors, but danger lived there as well. A dog whose interest in the baby bird was more in line with Lucky’s than Rodney’s roamed that yard. The human mum who lived there heard the alarm raised by the mother as she dove at the head of the other dog and came outside to investigate the noise. She grabbed the collar of her mutt and pulled him inside despite his whines of protest.  The mama magpie, satisfied that the moment of crisis had passed, ceased her noisemaking and flew up to perch on the end of the garage between the two houses so that she could have the proverbial and literal birds-eye view of the two yards.

Throughout the day, as I moved about in the house, I knew the route of the baby bird’s hopping path because of the mother’s occasional screeching. The baby somehow managed to cross the street for part of the day and mama had repositioned so that she could watch her broodling. I looked out the front windows and saw the poor baby seeking the shade of the bushes in front of the house directly across. By evening, the baby’s hops had brought her back on our side of the street and into the drive of the neighbor on the other side of my house. They had no animals there, so in one sense this was better. But Lucky was on the prowl again on that side of the house by that time. I could see the baby as mom swooped down on (un)Lucky’s head, and the hungry thing opened her mouth thinking food was being brought rather than protection. It was heartbreaking to watch. The coming night would be terrible, because night time was Lucky’s prime hunting hours.

But what could I do? It wasn’t my house. I was leaving in a matter of hours rather than days. No way could I take in the baby bird to feed it and care for it. I couldn’t obligate the inbound homeowners to became guardians over the creature. It all became almost unbearable to watch or listen to. Meanwhile, Rodney trotted over to that side of the house to look through the fence and see what all the commotion was about, but the momma chased that poor soul off as well. A confused Rodney ran away quickly. I could relate to Rodney in one sense and shared his confusion. It’s a terrible thing to witness when death looms over something so innocent, so young, and so vulnerable—and you feel helpless to do anything about it. You become keenly aware that forces beyond your control are at work and that the ending will not be a good one. It’s a peculiar type of frustration that comes when circumstances step in and take away our abilities to intervene when intervention is called for.

The next morning, Lucky was lazily asleep in the wicker chair on the porch when Rodney and I went outside. No sign of the baby anywhere in the yard or the adjacent yards to the right or left. I checked across the street. Nothing there, either. Maybe, just maybe, the killer cat had slept all night and had not done the dreaded deed.

Then, from the yard immediately behind the house and about 100 feet away from us, I heard the mama magpie squawking again. Apparently, the baby had hopped into the back neighbor’s yard overnight. The problem had moved on. The kerfuffle the mama was making told me that baby still wasn’t safe; it just wasn’t in front of my eyes anymore. If something happened to the li’l hopper at this point, I wouldn’t know about.

And, I’m ashamed to say, that fact gave a great sense of relief.