Maggie's Farm

We had an interesting incident here Saturday (04/11) AM. Carolyn & I heard a loud impact somewhere on one of our windows, and immediately knew it was a bird strike, which is lethal slightly more often than not. (Wood Thrushes seem particularly prone to paying the ultimate price; shame, for they have the most wonderful lilting call, that even Mr Jefferson wrote about, as I seem to recall.) Anyway, this morning three cardinals (one male, 2 female) had apparently been playing/"fighting" and two of them came out OK but one of the females was injured, lying on our roof with eyes closed, "leaning" on a wing. She perked up after awhile and then we surreptitiously observed the male had come back and was "pecking" (literally) on the dazed bird at the same time that the other female was flying animatedly back-and-forth over the injured bird. Eventually she slid down our low-slope roof to the gutter, where she continued to receive the attention of her two friends. Perhaps they were trying to prevent her from slipping into a terminal coma, or maybe did not want her to remain still for too long so as to avoid attention of hawks, which have taken birds here before? Anyway, this went on for about 20 minutes, then when we weren't looking the dazed female evidently flew off; I even got my ladder out to be sure she had gotten out of the gutter; sure enough, no sign of her. Isn't nature wonderful?