WildView™

December 19, 2016

Crash Landing

- as seen by -

Chris Spohn

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I'm working in the garage. This time fixing the coffee grinder…and BOOM! Something hits the roof. It is loud – like a coconut had dropped out of the sky. I think it might be the neighbor’s kid up to no good, but before I make it to the door, I hear scratching from above.

It’s not a kid, it’s a bird up there. I am thinking maybe an owl caught something and dropped it. I grab a flashlight. Nope. It is a pheasant. It stays put, so I run and get my girls, a better flashlight, and my camera. Ok, let’s see if it’s still there. It is!

“Can we get a ladder?” my daughters ask.

“Nope,” I respond.

We look around for an owl in the trees and see nothing. We can’t really tell if the bird on the roof is injured. It’s only moving its head. The girls go back inside. I take a few more pictures, and it goes to sleep…on the roof…which is inclined.

The bird slides off the 12 foot high roof into some leaves below. It is awake now. I run inside to update the girls and get a different lens. We go back out and see it sitting quite comfortably where it landed.

It’s clearly nervous, but not moving anything besides its head. And it’s breathing. Did this thing fall asleep in the tree, fall out of the tree onto the roof, fall asleep on the roof, and fall off the roof onto the ground? It has no obvious injuries. Its pupils respond to my light. I take a few more pictures, and we make a plan for the morning if it’s still there.

An hour passes. I finish fixing and modifying the coffee grinder. The pheasant is still there. It has moved about a foot from the spot where it landed an hour ago. I rustle some leaves, and it bounces straight to its feet and runs around the yard. I notice it has a band around its ankle. The girls are happy it’s not injured, but a little sad that they won’t get to bring it to a wildlife rehabber in the morning.

And the coffee grinder is fixed.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This photo was chosen as one of our top submissions from our Wild View All Things Autumn Assignment.

Pentax K-1 with Pentax D-FA 100mm Macro and Pentax AF-540FGZ Flash with Diffuser

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