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By Sheila Orysiek
 SAN DIEGO—The baby mockingbird was hungry, hurt and frightened, but I just didn’t have time to care for it. We were leaving early the next morning for a three-week vacation and the day was filled with preparations as well as packing suitcases for three people. My schedule also included teaching ballet classes from noon straight through till nine p.m. I had come home from a morning class for a very short time to take our cat, Margot, to the kennel. And this whole situation was her fault anyway.
Spring was Margot’s favorite time of year when the baby birds were fledging from the nest, testing their wings and sometimes landing on the ground. Margot was always ready to add this tasty addition to her diet. On this particular day I managed to get the baby bird out of her mouth and upon inspection found its tiny wing to be only nicked and while terribly frightened, the bird was not seriously injured. It needed only a few more days to get strength into its wings and of course it needed to eat. And that was the problem. I simply didn’t have the time but then I couldn’t readily throw this tiny creature back into the mouth of my disappointed cat. So I put the little bird in a small cardboard box and over the top I placed a cookie rack so it couldn’t hop out.
This tiny fluff of life, so recently from the hand of G-D, needed me to perform a mitzvah no matter how busy I was. With a sigh I sat down and began calling various reputable organizations that I thought might help with injured wildlife. One of them gave me the phone number of a bird sanctuary in Bonita – about 15 miles away. By now I was really behind in my schedule but I hurriedly put this little creature and its cardboard box covered by the cookie rack in the car, together with all my ballet gear, and hurried off to Bonita.
This was exactly in the opposite direction I needed to go to teach my class and so I was traveling about thirty miles out of my way. The directions I had been given by a man at the sanctuary were unclear at best. The name of the freeway exit was plain but thereafter I was directed to look for certain fences, large trees, and even a black horse in his pasture.
As I pulled into a barnyard, I sat for a moment transfixed by the sorry sight before me. The yard was littered with rubbish, broken machinery and derelict cars. It was hard to see which might be the family’s cars and which the derelicts. I took a chance and parked next to a truck with no hood over the motor and a car with no doors. Where oh where in the midst of this blight would there be a bird sanctuary? A very dilapidated house/barn combination sat in the middle of the yard window deep in trash.
I walked around looking for a front door, carefully stepping between piles of garbage and dodging several big dogs that showed a pronounced interest in the little box and bird I was
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carrying. Passing one side of the house I saw a large walk-in birdcage with several lively birds. My first impulse was to flee from this horrible place. However, I was due to teach a ballet class in forty-five minutes and then I had a rehearsal and would be spending the night packing suitcases. So, there was no choice but to continue to try to find the front door to this catastrophe of a house.
When I finally found it, I realized why it had been so difficult. A series of wooden boxes masquerading as steps led to a full-length window that was pretending to be a doorway. I knocked on the peeling wood siding and after a while a very large man of indeterminate years came to the window/door. I explained to him I had a baby bird and that I had been told this was a bird sanctuary. He remembered talking to me on the phone and giving me directions. He assured me that his mother took care of birds but she was sick at present and in any case she was blind and so he would take the bird.
He told me to put the box down on the table. I looked around trying to find a place on a table piled high with unidentifiable junk. Then with one swipe of his hand he scattered the junk from the table onto the floor and I put the box with the bird down on the newly cleared space. He lifted the cookie rack off the top of the box and handed it to me. At that moment the little bird hopped out of the box, slid off the table, fluttered onto the floor and hopped behind a partially opened closet door.
Immediately I bent over and made a grab for the bird but as I did so a large dog bounded into the door causing it to swing fully open and hit me on the head which knocked me over. I lost my grip on the bird and it continued to hop about. Suddenly, seemingly from nowhere, the sleek black body of a cat landed on the floor from a pile of boxes, and with one easy motion scooped the bird into its mouth and without breaking stride ran out the window and disappeared. It was over in an instant. The big dog and I both looked a bit shocked and dazed. The man was totally unconcerned.
Rubbing my head where the door had struck me, I picked up my purse and cookie rack. I was too angry to trust myself to ask this person how this place could possibly have qualified as a bird sanctuary, or indeed as any sanctuary of any kind except for derelict cars and garbage. As I drove away I kept running through the events in my mind. I had driven thirty miles in order for another cat to get this truly ill fated bird.
I tried as best I could to turn this disaster into some kind of mitzvah by calling the various wildlife and bird rescue societies and reporting on the status of the “bird sanctuary” in Bonita. I have since made it a point when I see an animal tied up in the hot sun, or one with no water or food available, or very thin, to report the situation to the Humane Society or the County Animal Control. Maybe that tiny bird didn’t die entirely in vain.
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