Robin Redbreast in Distress

Yesterday my neighbor across the street called me up in the middle of the afternoon.

“You want to see something really bizarre? ” he said. “Well, maybe not bizarre…there’s a Robin caught in the apricot tree, would you come over and help me get her loose? She’s tangled up in some string.”

Of course I went right over after making sure I had a clean, soft cotton handkerchief in my pocket.

At first, I couldn’t see Ms Robin. (Yes, both of us called the Robin ‘she’, so…) Underneath the almost ripe apricots hanging here and there from the bowed branch, a large Robin was hanging with one leg hooked around a small dead twig. At first we thought she was pinned to the tree by the twig, her leg pierced at the joint.She was very quiet at the moment, panting heavily, her chest heaving and her eyes looking as if they were slightly bulging.

Then, detecting a new presence, she started to beat her wings as hard as possible, working herself off of the twig until she hung at another odd angle from the branch. Now I could see the very tiny string, more like a thread really, wound around both of her feet at the ankle, and wound around the small branch of the tree. It must have been a plastic fiber because even though it was very slender, she couldn’t free herself. Although no bigger than a decent sized cobweb strand, it just wouldn’t break no matter how hard she struggled.

Maybe we could lop off the branch and then untangle her? As my neighbor went to find pruners or something, I just kept watching Ms Robin, holding the handkerchief in my hand. I wanted to wrap her up in the cloth so that she would stop struggling. If I could hold her around the wings, then we could see what needed to be done without hurting her.

I started doing a little hummy noise under my breath and focused on carefully moving closer while she was trying to untangle herself. She was almost out of her mind already, so I just wanted to sooth her and calm her down. Suddenly she stopped moving and was hanging directly upside down under the branch.

I reached forward quickly with the handkerchief between my hands and surrounded her terrified little body. Her heart was beating like a trip-hammer, but she was quiet. I asked my friend for scissors as I tried to loosen the thread around her tough little ankles with my pinkies while waiting. I kept murmuring to her, hoping it would be a comfort, and praying it wasn’t making it worst.

My friend carefully snipped the tiny bits of super strong thread that held Ms Robin to the branch. Then he clipped what threads he could without cutting the leathery skin on her ankles and finally her feet were free! I walked out from under the overhanging branches of the apricot tree and gently tossed Robin up in the air.  She made it to the top of the wooden fence next door in a couple of wing beats.

We watched her sit still, with her beak open, panting from the exertion and fright of being bound to a tree. A dish of water was set out close by, but not so close as to scare her further. After awhile, I went home. She wasn’t moving from that fence until she gathered her strength back and I didn’t want her to worry about my presence.

Blessings Robin! May you live long and prosper!