Startling Starling!

This little fella, a baby starling, ricocheted with a loud bang into my window this afternoon.

Stunned baby starling after face-planting at 40 mph into my window!

His little beak took the full impact. Naturally he was totally stunned. He spent the next ten minutes on the ground, twitching in various awkward positions. I went out for a while to stroke him very gently so he would stop struggling and made sure he was out of the open where our local Sparrowhawk wouldn't spot him for a ready meal!

Gasping and blinking, he clung onto my finger with his foot, so I knew he had a little life and fight still in him! There was just a tiny drop of blood at the tip of his beak, where it had hit the glass, but no other signs of damage.

Eventually, he righted himself and tentatively tried to fly, first skittering against the fence, then bumping the glass again, but he soon got his bearings and flew under the nearby hedge. Here he rested for a while longer before flying away to join his many brothers and sisters who have been noisily pestering their parents for food for the last few days.

I don't know if I'll recognise him among their number in the future. If he can learn to feed properly with that sore beak-end, he should do just fine! A few of my local starlings have similar minor infirmities like bent feet and legs, but they adapt, move forward with their little lives and survive as well as the next.

I hope the best for little Beaky, too.

Maybe he'll now be wiser about glass than all his siblings! Maybe deep in his being, he'll remember that somewhere out in this bewildering blue dome of threats and struggles, one big strange featherless creature soothed his ruffled feathers with a touch as tender as the breeze, and whispered reassurances; that when his universe turned upside down with a smack and left him shellshocked and stranded on earth, another presence wished him well and stayed nearby till he was safe and strong enough to fly away to freedom.

But little creatures are often more a blessing to us than we can be to them. I'll remember him long after he's forgotten his adventure in my garden today. There's the joy of having a privileged glimpse into God's amazing universe of miracles!