Thursday, May 03, 2012

I found her at about 7:30 PM last night in a corner near 46th and 9th at Zen Palate restaurant.  I immediately started to google around for what to do in this situation.  I called a number listed on this website  http://nycprc.org/  and got a prompt call back and a plead to try to keep the pigeon safe and sheltered with me overnight until I could get it to Animal General on the upper west side.  She was on the ground in a corner obviously unable to walk.I put her in a cardboard box and brought her home with me.   She was so dirty and shaking with fright.  I was able to secure her in my apartment with little dishes of water in a  little makeshift bird house.

     This morning I gave her a bath in my tub and blow dryed her.  I think she liked how warm she was and wasn't so scared after the initial shock of the noisy device. On the way to the hospital I decided to name her Bobbi (i wasn't sure how to determine her gender and even if I did  wasn't sure if she identified with that gender (this is new york city after all)  I took her to http://animalgeneral.com/ on 87th and Columbus Avenue. They have some sort of arrangement with the http://wildbirdfund.com/. The wild bird fund gets money from donors and seems to give some of this money to places like "animal general" in the upper west side. I believe to recompense them for taking care of random birds like the one I found. They took a quick look at her and realized immediately that she had a splayed leg and estimated her to be only 3-4 weeks old. They said it was a congenital defect and might have been caused or exacerbated by how it was positioned in it's mothers nest. They said this type of problem never ends well and the most humane thing would be to euthanize her today.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn87oXoR_28&feature=youtu.be