A Very Tiny Rescue

Last night, my handsome other half and I were down on Bloor Street West at a favourite eatery. We had a table that turned to front-row centre seating for the little drama that was about to play itself out. This particular spot has "roll-away" windows so that the summer breezes are free to come in and play with the patrons, grabbing napkins and blowing them away sometimes, and other times behaving themselves and simply fanning the diners gently.
As I said, we were at the table that looked right out onto the sidewalk, so had great seats for people watching and for hearing the neighbourhood birds trill their pleasure at the evening's warmth. One bird seemed to be calling a little more insistently, a little more worriedly. When we looked, we saw him - Papa Sparrow - hopping concernedly around his chick, on the sidewalk just in front of us. This little one was not a hatchling, but neither was it capable of flight. We immediately began to share the father bird's concern. I broke up some bread and dropped small pieces in front of the adult bird. He pecked at them to break off some crumbs and take them to offspring. The little one seemed not to know what to do with them.
Again the father came to take some bread, for himself, and while he was busy, the little one hopped down off the sidewalk and right into a lane of traffic. My husband's lifesaving instincts took over, and he ran out to the bird. No cars were approaching right at that moment so he bent down to the wee one and extended his hand. The chick hopped right up onto it. For those of you who will protest, "parents won't take back a baby handled by humans", we figured that was a better chance to take than simply wait for it to be flattened by some car's tires.
He nestled the baby into the flower box right at my elbow. The baby was quiet at first, but Papa was calling loudly for it. Finally, the little one called out and the adult bird flew down to perch beside it. Papa chirped loudly to the baby and then flew away, and the little one hopped out of the flower box and down the the sidewalk. People walking by pointed to it and walked around it, or simply ignored it totally. One woman came thundering along, however, absorbed in her own thoughts and not looking where her purposeful strides were landing. Just when she seemed about to step right on the helpless youngster, my hubby shot his hand out into the field of vision. She stopped short, looked down in amazement and stepped around the wee scrap of life.
As she walked away, another man approached. He bent down to the little one and scooped it up into his hand, cradling it gently on his palm. Then he began to look around and up, obviously searching for the nest the baby had come from. At that point, another 'front row' diner called out to him that he had seen the adult bird flying in and out of a nest above a store on the other side of the street. The rescuer walked across, found the nest and also saw that it was too high up for him to reach by himself.
Again my husband took action. When the man came back to our side of the street, expressing his concern and uncertainty as to what he could do next, hubby said he would ask for a ladder. The cafe owners had none to offer. The two men crossed the street together, the one still holding the bird after leaving his briefcase with me. A newspaper box was commandeered and dragged the length of several stores to be positioned beneath the nest. Hubby steadied the box and the other gentleman climbed up, only to find that his reach still fell short of the nest.
By this point, there was steely determination in the eyes of both men. Nothing would do but that they get the wee one safely back home. My husband went running into another store and reemerged with a plastic crate. With the crate atop the newspaper box, the other man took a step up on it and found he could finally reach the nest. With one quick motion, baby was home. Several people who had been watching the whole scene clapped their approval of the happy ending. The adult bird flew into the nest in short order.
When the two men had returned the impromptu ladders, they came back to the diner and the other gent introduced himself as Peter. Having grown up in an area of B.C where he was surrounded by a rich variety of lifeforms, he said he acquired a lifelong reverence for life. Peter told us that he extends his respect for animal life even to those killed on the roads. If he sees an animal hit and killed while he is on foot, he will move it over to the side so it is not repeatedly run over. He said, " That bird may have been a very little life, but it was a life nonetheless, and he deserved the chance to survive." Last night, here in the big, cold, uncaring metropolis I call home, it seemed that there were so many people who did care about a little life. That one baby bird took several complete strangers and united them for a moment or two in a rescue that gave then all a chance to feel good; to feel just for a moment like Toronto isn't quite so cold and unfeeling as everyone says it is.
Today, I went as usual to volunteer at the CNIB. At coffee break, the conversation was desultory and too many of us were sitting quiet, not connecting with each other, so I said I had a story for them. I recounted the events of last night, using my best storyteller techniques. Everyone was quiet and listening carefully. When I reached the point where the first attempt to reach into the nest failed, some of them exclaimed their disappointment and one woman said, "That bird better have made it safely home. I want to hear that." When I told of the final success, the reaction was the same as it was last night. Everyone was smiling, ad several of my listeners broke into applause. People need to hear sometimes that others care, that even the littlest, seemingly most unimportant among us can hope for help in our time of need. I was glad I had that story to share.