...............has had us worried this afternoon. Because it can't fly. It appears to be deaf. Maybe blind for all we can tell. It doesn't know how to look for food properly. It falls asleep for 10 minutes at a time. It stands in the middle of the garden patch, for all the world as if there aren't 3 cats within cooee distance.
It appears to be a young blackbird. It's parents have not come into the garden to harry it out of harms way. The bird itself - which I have named 'Robinson' - let me walk around it, practically pick it up, before it tried to hop away. It is injured in some way - as we can tell by it's manner of hopping. It is unable to manouvre itself up a 2 inch step.
But the most worrying behaviour is that every now and again, usually after we have come too close, it sits perfectly still for up to 10 minutes in the open. It might well have gone to sleep because it is exhausted, in pain, or in shock, but whatever is the problem, it is not trying to hide itself away from predators.
I know it might be remaining still in order not to reveal its presence.
But it actually has turned it's back on me several times whilst foraging for food - if it is food it's eating? Unfortunately it looks suspiciously like soil. Yet it looks plump, (tho' it's feathers might be plumped up a great deal) and quite healthy.
We thought it was ill and about to die - but then it hops around a bit - and then stops still.
It's all very puzzling. We had to push it under a tree cos it just wasn't going to go to bed by itself.
I shall lay awake all night worrying about Robby Boy!
