August 14th, 2009
This morning I gave medicine to a bird. We are both traumatized. It turns out it is incredibly difficult to catch a finch, even when it is in a tiny cage, because they are almost shockingly fast and, of course, motivated by what we could probably call the “holy shit a monster is trying to eat me FLEE” module. After the first few minutes of failed attempts I withdrew my arm from the cage and we both regrouped – the poor little guy was just heaving with breathing so hard from what is undoubtedly the terror of being pursued around a tiny cage by a big fleshy appendage.
But finally I nabbed him, performed the flip manouver, and dropped .12 mL of bird medicine into his tiny beak. Or at least I think it was .12 mL, seriously, at those measurements the margin for error is enormous.
I feel guilty for scaring the bejeesus out of a little sick bird, and he probably hates my guts. And we have to do it all again tonight. Oy!
PS: The birds eat this yellowish, grainy meal that I was poking at yesterday when the owners were dropping the birds off. Me: “And what is this stuff?” My cousin: “Ground up bugs.” Me: “…”