Fallen Crow

I was walking home a little while ago. As I turned to our lane I started hearing the caw of a thousand birds quaking the whole neighbourhood.

In front of the apartment-block before ours, was lying a fallen crow gasping for breath, in the searing sun.

For a moment I think, I stood there staring at it. Then I rushed home to see if my brother was home.He wasn't. I ran back. I knew the bird needed help. But I wasn't sure if I should touch it. So in our back yard I found a piece of a wooden board that was lying around.

Having laid this on the floor before the crow, I was standing there wondering how to get the crow on the pallet when thankfully a man from next door came to help. Unlike me, he took the bird in his hands, laid it on the board & carried it to a log that we use as a pedestal for a birdbath basin.

I hurried & got a bowl of water some of which the man tried to pour into the crow's beak. It was still gasping for breath.(That what I was hoping at least, that it was merely gasping for breath). Then deciding that there was nothing else he could do the man walked away. I thanked him & just stood there with the bowl of water in my hands.

I stroked its feathers a bit to see if it would shuffle. It wouldn't. After a while I gave it more water. When I tried a second time to give it water it moved a bit & tried to lift its wings. And it also seemed to be breathing with less difficulty.

Because I thought it was recovering I came inside & changed my clothes.And went back.

The crow had fallen back on the ground, dead.

I couldn't save it.