human interest
Tree-trapped with willing wings in my maple; ‘sheer’ morning rescue results
Pitching the cool last gulp of a 40-minute-old third cup of morning coffee down the drain peering out the kitchen window, I noticed my old backyard maple contending with a struggle in its limbs.
Like most Farragut retirees — or just anybody with a day off — can relate, I was enjoying a little a.m. R&R of the at-home variety with nothing but time and coffee to kill. But the rustling, budding, red leaves against the blue sky held my attention, creating enough curiosity for me to mosey out to see what in the world was the matter.
Its wings flapped, fluttered and frenetically flittered as the little robin tried in vain to loosen its leg from the stranglehold created by, I opined, nest-building material that found itself wrapped around its frail leg and a limb of the maple.
Utterly baffled, watching the little robin hanging upside-down, seemingly on the verge of a heart attack while endeavoring its escape, my brain searched its vastly empty interior for anything in the house to help in its effort.
In all my day-off-Monday-morning brilliance, I remembered the extendable paint roller handle in the garage; ran in, grabbed it and dashed back out and commenced striking at the limb like the idiot I am in hopes of breaking it or at least loosening whatever was re-training the ensnarled little robin.
I come out, surely looking like an exterminator instead to the poor little robin, trying harder not to smack the poor little thing in my lamest attempt to actually help it.
A robin friend landed on a nearby limb to watch, screeching its apparent criticism, seemingly contemplating attacking me versus watching any more of my “help.”
Alas, I stared up at the squawking robin and remembered I have a blunt pair of garden sheers sitting pretty in a pile of nothing but dust in the garage. But I’m way short, literally.
The ladder and the pitch of the ground there beneath the maple tree made any bright decision fall by the wayside, so I grabbed a stepstool and a couple of wooden dowels, duct-taping those to the handles to extend their reach, and positioned the stepstool as carelessly as possible in hopes of working fast, not smart. I might have been on my toenails on that stepstool, arms overstretched, as I chopped into the limbs trying, quite literally, not to divide the little robin or impale it as I’m attempting to free it while simultaneously trying not to fall myself. Horrible.
It — unaware I’m not trying to kill it — keeps flapping and darting every which way imaginable; coupled with my progressing aim at hitting the right limb on the right mark and not it, the poor little robin goes on to keep its cool about as well as a screaming-hot ember, while I try and maintain my balance still on this wobbly stepstool.
At long last, I finally cut the limb. The extra tape wrapped about the handles paid off, keeping the dowels from breaking loose while chopping at the limb.
The little robin fell to the ground, but sort of had some wind beneath its wings as it hit, and as it brushed the grass, bounced and repeated the pattern for several yards, it finally got enough ummppphhh to get over the back fence and shaking loose its maple manacle.
And then the little robin was gone and, if I’ve seen it again, I wouldn’t know it from any other frolicking amidst the leaves, but I’ll always remember the day I freed that particular little robin struggling away in the limbs of that old maple tree.
