Lost and Found - a Happy Story

On Saturday, our fattest bullie, Wiggle (who also happens to be our quickest bullie) found and pounced on an adolescent hadeda in our garden.  I swatted at Wiggle while Séan swooped in (not unlike Divan Serfontein diving over the try-line) to save the birdie.

 

After I had herded the very excited dogs into the house Séan tossed the shocked hadeda onto our roof where it wandered up and down in a rather befuddled manner.  It eventually settled down in a sunny corner to contemplate its experience.  I had seen its parents fly north earlier that day – probably off to some family shindig or other, they’re very sociable birds.

 

Finally awakening from its stupor it wandered across to the very end of the roof and stood peering loftily down at us mere mortals.  We weren’t sure if the birdie could fly and, to be honest with you, I’m not sure if the birdie knew if it could fly.

 

About an hour later the hadeda half flew, half fell off the roof and, bringing a few twigs with it from a nearby tree, landed with a thump on the ground.  Jerry and I held our breath to see if it was alright and, because it appears to be a typical teenager, it leapt up with an air of “I meant to do that” and zig-zagged unsteadily off towards the back garden.

 

We were on our way out not long after that and left happy in the knowledge that the little hadeda was in the back garden with our pinkest bullie, Snowy, who is rather fond of birds and allows them to eat and drink out of her bowls.  (She’ll only chase them if she knows there’s a human watching [‘cos that’s what dogs are supposed to do] and even then she actually runs past them, not at them.)

 

Our return was at dusk and the garden was too dark to see where our newest “rescue” was hiding.

 

This morning we were roused by the unmistakable and frantic squawking of the mommy-hadeda.  You could hear she was as worried as hell and desperately looking for her kiddie.  But despite her constant calling there was no answering squawk.   Séan stalked the back garden while I crept around the front garden trying to spot the errant adolescent.  It was nowhere to be seen.

 

Feeling a little heart-sore we eventually had to return indoors.  The day was not slowing down to wait for us.  Suddenly we heard the wonderful cacophony of joyful squawking.  A celebration!!!  Sure enough, daddy-hadeda had returned from his search around the neighbourhood with their little prodigal.  He sat yelling to other nearby hadedas to join in the celebration while mommy-hadeda frantically fed the baby anything and everything she could find and baby hadeda tried to talk through its mouthfuls to tell its mamma it could fly.

 

What a lovely way to start a Monday!