Saturday 7 May 2011

Mission of mercy............

My calculations were interrupted earlier by a poor pigeon, hit by a car just outside our house.  We think one wing and both legs were broken, and it lost almost all of the feathers from its tail and the back end of its body.

It managed to scramble to the kerb where it quickly attracted a crowd of curious children onlookers so we grabbed a box and a towel and went outside to see what could be done.  The poor thing looked in a bad way and was bleeding from the damaged wing.  We gently draped a towel over it and it stopped struggling, then we carefully moved it into the box and took it indoors.

The consensus among the children was that they should take it and put it into the woods for a fox to find it.  Bloodthirsty little buggers.

PP rang the RSPCA and was directed to take it to a local vet, who would probably put it to sleep, so we put it carefully in the car and set off to our vet on The Ridge, where it was received and taken off to be euthanized.

The kindest thing would been to have put it out of its misery ourselves, straight away, but neither of us could do it.  Similarly we couldn't just leave it to die slowly, probably in a great deal of pain.  It was a very upsetting episode...... I can't bear to see any animal suffer.

Now we're worried that it's the pigeon who visits our bird bath every day to take a shower and preen its feathers.  Also that it might have baby birds somewhere in the woods behind the house, who may now also die.

The driver of the car which hit it MUST have been aware, as there was a cloud of feathers blowing all over the road.  How insensitive to just drive on and ignore the poor thing fluttering on the road. 

Unsurprisingly, I'm no longer in the mood for accounts........

3 comments:

Robin said...

There are days when 'buggrit' seems the only response.
Rx

Michelle said...

I'm a animal etc lover myself and would find this whole episode distressing.

Unfortunately you'll never know whether she had young, lets hope that that wasn't the case or maybe that it was a male bird who perhaps wouldn't look after the young birds.

On a good note, we've saved many young birds etc from my cats and nursed them back to good health...they all flew away. ;o))

Michelle xx

Sandra Morris said...

Yes.... buggrit doesn't even come close.

We live in a cul-de-sac at the top of a hill. We're almost right at the top but people still drive like maniacs to get to the little spur at the top. Whoever hit it MUST have known and I'm practically incandescent with rage that someone could hit a living creature and not stop and get out to see if they could help in any way.

Sadly I'm sure the pigeon was incapable of being saved. I kept wishing it would just lie down and die, but it didn't. Being such a coward about killing it we did the only thing we could and took it to our vet to be put to sleep.

I'm so upset by the whole thing....

Sx