It's dead baby bird season.

[crazychicknlady]

It amazes me that doves have managed to survive through the ages. They are so stupid about where they build their nests, at least around here. Last year was the same. I can't walk outside nowadays without seeing a dead baby bird - blown out of the nest by a high wind, or just fallen out due to shoddy craftsmanship, I'm not sure which.

I knew someone, through the unschooling groups, whose son could not even stand the thought of killing a fly - the idea of a dead bird would likely cause him much sorrow. I'm glad my kids are a little harder hearted than he is, or I would have to conduct a very large number of burial services each spring.

Comments

[janeg.livejournal.com]

My husband and I often talk about our morning doves as the dumbest creatures around. We've had doves who've forgotten they know how to fly when a car approaches them; we go very slowly in our driveway waiting for them to toddle off. Phil's managed to stroke wild doves because they forget to move away. We assume that any healthy indoor cat with no hunting experience could survive outdoors as long as there doves around. And yet, every year, we have lots of doves. And we never see fluffy little doves, so they must grow to full size rapidly.

[crazychicknlady.livejournal.com]

My son's cat, NewCat, may be the only cat capable of starving in a dove rich environment. When faced with an animal, even a trapped helpless one, she always looks a combination of fascinated and terrified, and incapable of landing a killing blow.

Now our other cat would feast.

[catnip13.livejournal.com]

Every time we go for a walk after it rains we spend half the walk scooping earthworms off the sidewalks and streets (where they will die quickly when the pavement dries) and back onto the dirt. I think my kid's like your friend. Which is likely no surprise at all.

[crazychicknlady.livejournal.com]

We save earthworms, too. And there is a variety of very small beetle which invades our home, that C calls his "beetle friend" and we mostly leave alone.

We've had burial services for our chickens, and the peacock which flew into our yard when we first moved in. But my kids have gotten used to dead doves. It is a fact of life around here. Unfortunately we don't find them alive, just featherless, tiny and pathetic and dead. Not that I would be competent to raise them if we did happen upon a live one.

You are right, though, it does not surprise me that your sweet girl is more like my friend's son, but would she object to you killing a fly or ants? That degree of compassion baffles me.