Laura Erickson's For the Birds

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Three years ago last June, a little nighthawk came to Peabody Street. He had a calm, gentle nature, and looked at me with big brown eyes that expressed as much feeling as the eyes of a spaniel. His wing was broken and mangled from a telephone wire that had intersected his nuptial flight path. Nighthawks need to fly—they fly to eat, to communicate with one another, to exist—needing flight as much as a human needs self expression. This poor nighthawk would never fly again.

It must have been an overwhelming loss, but he never seemed to look back on his high-flying days with bitterness or despair. He trusted me to take care of him, and often followed me from room to room, with a comical Charlie Chaplin-like gait. I named him Fred, after Mr. Rogers, the star of television’s most gentle and sweet children’s program.

Fred was my licensed education bird, accompanying me to Cub Scout pack meetings, school programs, anywhere a little nighthawk could interest children in birds. During fall he helped me count birds, making a soft rit-rit-rit call when a red-tail too high for my eyes circled in the deep blue sky. When nighthawks migrated in big numbers of an August evening, we’d sit together on my picnic table and watch them winging toward the sunset—heading west to clear the lake before banking toward South America. These were the only times that Fred seemed sad about not being able to fly. He’d watch them with longing in his eyes as he nestled against my thigh. Was the warmth and security I provided worth the loss of his freedom and flight? Most rehabbers euthanize nighthawks with broken wings that can’t be repaired. Is this a mercy? Fred’s patient ways, the gusto with which he scarfed down mealworms, and his devotion to me assuaged my conscience.

Last Sunday, Fred died of pneumonia. He was sick for less than five days. Tuesday night he seemed a little peaked, and his nasal pores were clogged, so I took him with when I drove to Sioux Falls, South Dakota on Wednesday. He liked riding in the car, and sat in a sunny spot in the front seat for five hours, until the oldies station I was listening to played the Buckinghams’ “Kind of a Drag”—Fred always hated that song, so he jumped down and waddled to the back seat. That day and the next his appetite picked up, and he seemed to be responding well to amoxycillin. By Friday he seemed his old self again, but took a sudden turn for the worse Saturday night, and by Sunday morning he couldn’t hold down any food or medicine. I held him in my hand most of the day. He nestled into my palm in that trusting way that hurt my heart.

I imagined him a fuzzy little hatchling, looking at the big sky for the first time, wondering what the world had in store for him. He’d flown all the way to South America and back at least once. Did he think that migration was exciting or scary? Exhilarating or exhausting? Did he rail against the cosmic injustice of being crippled in his prime? Had he at least had a chance to mate before his accident? Did he have a son or daughter out there who carried his sweet-natured genes?

Fred didn’t die dramatically—his breathing just grew slower and slower, and suddenly he opened his eyes, almost hopefully, and died. We could picture his spirit pulling out of his tired little body and fluttering toward the bright October sky, then setting a course and flying, finally and forever, free at last.