We have a family of Superb Fairy Wrens living in the bush in our front yard. I am so in love with these beautiful little things. The family seems to have expanded over the spring time and now there are dozens of these tiny adorable little creatures flitting from tree to bush, twittering and trilling away all day. The females are brown with an attractive red slash across their eyes. The male (there is only one) has a black and blue head and a vibrant electric blue body. He is a very handsome boy.
They are extremely playful and inquisitive. I can stand at the window and whistle at them and they hop over through the branches of the tree to look at me. Even when we walk through the garden they don’t seem to be too afraid of us and come out to have a look at who is passing by their home.
It was perhaps this lack of a sense of danger that got one little female in trouble one day.
I was sitting at my computer when my cat Moby passed by the door, making a funny noise. I immediately sensed that he was up to something and raced out the door, to find that he had a bird in his mouth. I yelled at him and he took off into the garage and hid under the car. I crouched down and, Moby, sensing he was in big trouble, didn’t put up a fight when I dragged him out. Holding him by the scruff of his neck so as not to hurt him or the bird I said through gritted teeth “LET GO!” and amazingly he did. He literally spat the bird out. I scooped it up in my hands, the cat now forgotten. I thought, surely it was dead, it was so tiny, it would have easily been crushed. But while I was thinking this the bird suddenly wriggled in my fingers. “HUNNY!” I yelled taking it into the house. We popped it into an old sock to keep it warm and while I held onto the little bundle Hubby got a bird cage ready we just happened to have. Then we put the bird, still in the sock, inside the cage, and rang the bird rescue place to find out what to do. The lady told us not to feed it or give it water, because of the shock. If it survived the night then it would be ok to let it go. We covered the cage with a towel and I could hear her peeping quietly under it. We left the cage downstairs to give her some peace and quiet and time to recover.
The next morning with some trepidation I lifted up the towel and there she was, flitting around the cage and looking very sprightly indeed! She had lost her tail feathers but didn’t look like she had any other damage done to her. So I took her outside and positioned the cage near the bush were the Wrens lived. I opened the door and she flew straight out, greeted with much twitterings and excitement from the others. I felt so good.
I went around the other side of the bush and wheeled our bin back inside our yard (It had been bin night) and when I passed the Wrens bush they all suddenly came out and sat on the outer branches and twittered at me. I felt like Snow White. Snow White in a big bright pink fluffy dressing gown.
