Laura Erickson's For the Birds

Watching all the little siskins visiting my feeders makes me very happy, calling to mind one of my most memorable experiences, involving a nestling Pine Siskin who had been attacked by a cat in Duluth in 1989, when I was a new and still fairly inexperienced wildlife rehabber.

I’d taken a call from someone in West Duluth who “rescued” a baby bird from her cat. The bird was utterly adorable—covered with soft down more like a baby duck than a baby songbird. I knew it was a finch because these songbirds often start nesting during frigid weather, so the nestlings feather out with thick down much more quickly than most songbirds. This one was adorably tiny—its feet too small to grasp my baby finger. The tiny size and streaks told me it must be a Pine Siskin.

The bird’s wings were fine, but the cat’s teeth had punctured the poor little thing’s torso, and that first day, large air sacs swelled up beneath the skin on its lower chest. By the third day, the swelling on one side became huge, holding its right wing askew at an odd angle well above the left. The situation seemed so dire that I kept the tiny thing in my home office and didn’t tell my kids I even had it. They were 3, 5, and 7 years old—still much too little to watch such an adorable creature fade away and die. But I gave it the best chance I could, and the little mite’s eyes stayed bright and it seemed in good spirits despite the ugly wound.

Finch parents regurgitate semi-digested seed to feed their young. Not only did I lack the skills and requisite stomach juices and siskin spit to properly regurgitate seeds, I had even less inclination to try it. I experimented with homemade baby bird recipes for a couple of days, but as soon as I could, I went to a pet store and bought a hand-feeding mixture for baby cockatiels and parakeets, which I fed using an eyedropper.

Every bird I’d treated after a cat attack ended up dying from internal injuries and horrible infections from the puncture wounds. So the very first day I called every rehabber I knew, trying to find out what antibiotic to use and how to figure out the dosage. The best guess was amoxycillin, the same pink liquid medication my children got for ear infections, supplied by my veterinarian. The best guess on dosage was one drop several times a day. The little siskin seemed to like it.

By the fifth day, the swelling on the lower side had gone down, but now it had a new swelling on the side of its neck–a big, bulbous sac that made its breathing labored and its feathers stick out oddly. But it still didn’t seem to be in any discomfort, and even started flitting about, more awkwardly than most fledglings because of the pulsating air sacs, but this little bird clearly wanted to stay alive.

It took weeks before the air sacs started receding, and through that time, I didn’t tell my kids about the little bird. But when the air sacs finally disappeared and the punctures were clearly healing, I finally showed it to my kids. The boys were still scared of it dying—what had inevitably happened with cat-injured birds before—but my brave little 5-year-old daughter wanted to help me with this bird. She quickly learned how to feed it with the dropper, and we moved the bird’s cage into her bedroom. It was the kind of cage with a very large door that could be left open, and she was good and quick about cleaning up droppings—much drier and easier to clean up in finches than most songbirds—so the cage door stayed wide open from when Katie woke up in the morning until bedtime.

After the wounds were entirely healed, Katie started taking the siskin outdoors with her. When she was swinging on our swing set, the little bird sat on her shoulder, fluttering its wings as the swing moved forward and closing the wings when the swing went backwards. Whenever Katie rode her tricycle, she kept her left index finger extended for the little finch to perch. seemed to enjoy riding up and down the sidewalk with her.

In August, more and more finches started gathering in our yard, eating at the feeders and twittering in our spruces, and the siskin started joining them occasionally, but returning to Katie for feedings. But little by little, it figured out, probably from hanging out with siskins, how to eat on its own, and we suddenly realized it wasn’t taking nearly as much food from us as it used to. And now it wasn’t coming down reliably when Katie called. But it always flew to her at day’s end and flew into its cage for the night of its own volition.

Until the night it didn’t come in at all. It wasn’t taking much food from us at all anymore, and clearly could manage life on its own with so many siskins to associate with. Katie and I talked about how important it was for birds to be free and how joyful we felt about that, but releasing a beloved wild bird may be the very situation for which the word ambivalence was coined. Katie had just started taking piano lessons that summer. The songs in the pre-school book had simple words that the children were supposed to sing as they played to reinforce the melody and rhythm, and that very day she was working on was called “Little Bird.” There she sat at the piano, her ankles crossed and little legs dangling, tears flowing as she sang, “Little bird, little bird, please don’t fly away. Little bird, little bird, stay and sing all day.” I was crying, too.

The next morning when Russ opened the backdoor to let our dog Bunter go out, in burst the siskin. It flew through the back entry, kitchen, and dining room, turned the corner and kept flying upstairs and straight through Katie’s room into its cage and started swinging manically. I have no idea what happened to scare it or if it just needed some time to process the new experience, but it didn’t leave Katie’s side all day, both in and out of the house.

But the next day when it went outside with Katie it stayed out, and never again came into the house. Katie started all-day kindergarten in September. When she’d get home in the afternoon, the little bird would fly right to her but wouldn’t come in when Katie did. Sometimes when she was swinging or riding her tricycle, the siskin would join for a bit, but now it had other friends and things to do.

Then one day it disappeared—probably moving on with a siskin flock, but how could we know? Birds never write or call. We waited a week or two before moving the cage out of Katie’s room—she and I both cried.

We thought that was that. But one spring day when the snow had cleared and temps were balmy, we brought Katie’s tricycle out to the front sidewalk and suddenly, out of a clear blue sky (literally!) a little Pine Siskin dropped down and alighted on Katie’s finger.

I’ll never know why the siskin did that. Did it miss Katie? Want to thank her and let her know it was fine? Looking out the window, seeing her with the dear little bird on her finger again, beaming with joy, remains one of my most beautiful memories. We never saw the little siskin again, or at least never picked it out from the other siskins, but even now, 36 years later, I can’t see siskins in my yard without remembering that one beloved little sprite—truly one of my Best Birds EVER!