Art Book #1

Kiwi

This is not art, it's just a reminiscent journal entry from November 2020. The actual events happened in May, I was just recalling and writing them down. I'm not sure why I wanted to post it here, but I did, so enjoy some terrible writing. I don't actually keep a journal, by the way. I just randomly write things down sometimes. 

I have a habit of getting super descriptive, and you can see it a bit here. 

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November 17th, 2020–

I found Kiwi in the creek. 

Or I suppose you could say the creek brought Kiwi to me. 

The creek itself deserves some description. It's not a particularly unique or amazing creek, but it is certainly special in it's own quiet, peaceful way. It has tall, curving banks where trees grow so close to the edge you can practically climb in under the roots, deep pools and pebbly shallows, small waterfalls and mossy rocks. I go there all the time to dip my feet in, explore, or hunt turtles and salamanders. 

The trees arch overhead, making it shady for most of the day, but at particular hours the sun slants down and sparkles on the ripples. It's funny how such an ordinary place as a creek can be so magical when you just sit down and observe the little things, like tiny fiddleheads uncurling between the stones, the silvery shimmer of minnows in the sunlight, or the delicate prints of a coon in the mud. And if you sit very, very, still, and very, very, quietly, a doe might slip through the undergrowth to drink, or a black bear come down the trail through the trees to seek out crawfish in the dappled pools. Black bears are rarer, and I've only actually seen one twice, but there are often many tracks.

I digress. 

It was the afternoon, and my older brother, one of my younger sisters, and I were exploring, slowly making our way upstream. The birds were loud, as they always are in the later hours of the day. There are always birds at the creek, singing in the trees overhead, rustling about in the undergrowth, or flittering past and making tiny claw-marks in the mud when you aren't looking. Somehow they always do it without being seen.

We were just splashing along, jumping from rock to rock and chattering like bluejays when we became aware of a loud shrieking noise. We simply assumed it was just some annoyed avian, and continued on. It got louder and louder, and as we turned a bend in the creek, it got simply earsplitting. That's when I noticed him. 

A tiny lump of wet feathers and anger was stranded on a rock to the side of the stream where the current is stronger. It was bobbing a little, like the fishing float that goes on the line, but was only getting moved against the slant of the stone, and therefore stayed where it was. And that infinitesimal speck of fury was emitting piercing screams that one would have assumed came from a jay. 

I naturally alerted the other two, and we approached it, discovering that it was a little fledging bird. I'm not particularly motherly, but I do love most creatures, and this raging, downy child was no exception. 

He had evidently been there for quite some time, his down was soaked through to the skin, and he shivered in between huge gulps of screech-fueling air. I picked him up off the rock and my sister carefully dried him off a little in her shirt, him screaming all the while. We then placed him on the bank and left, since most fledglings fall close to the nest, and surely his parents would take notice of him. 

An hour later he was still there, somehow still screeching.

My entry ends here, but, long story short, I took him home and raised him. He ate crumbled hard-boiled eggs and I took him out into the woods every day and say nearby, watching him learn to fly. At first he just hopped and fluttered, then managed to get up to branches. 

One day he simply took flight and vanished over the ridge. I was proud and sad at the same time, watching him go. There are a lot of Tufted Titmice around, and I like to think that one of them is him. 

I don't have any pictures of him from later, when he had more feathers, but here's some from the first two days. I only had him for a week, they develop skills so quickly! 

And here are two from when I took him out. 

He somehow managed to land underneath this log.