Wildlife and wild death...

Well, we had a terrible bird accident at our house yesterday. I was sitting on the back porch enjoying the afternoon sun when I heard an odd whump, which reminded me of certain small earthquakes back in California, then a flock of birds zoomed past me and across the field. As I was sitting there wondering what it might have been, the kids raced to the back door to tell me that a bunch of birds had flown into our front windows and were lying on the sidewalk outside.
It was terrible. Twelve beautiful cedar waxwings were down in all, most already dead. We picked up the dying and held them to keep them warm. The one I was holding worked a chokecherry fruit out of its gizzard as it lay in my hand, and I gently removed it from its beak. After it died, I took Harry's from him and wrapped it in my shirt, holding it to my belly. I could feel life pulsing in it still. Maddie held hers close as well. After a while, I knew mine had died, but Maddie's actually had opened its eyes and was sitting, beak open, stunned. We set it up in a basked with a warmed rice bag under it and covered it with a towel to keep it quiet.
After an hour or so, I checked and it looked fairly alert, so I got online and asked on our local unschooling discussion board about bird rescue places. One of our friends told me of the humane society and when I called, they said, bring it in, we're open til 6:30. So the kids and I braved cross-town rush-hour traffic, bird-in-basket-in-lap. The wildlife rehab worker said it looked better than any cedar waxwing they'd gotten in recently and that we'd done a good job of keeping it warm. Apparently these birds are not building-savvy and fly into windows often, and in large flocks this time of year.
So we left our little survivor there, much to Harry's dismay. The wildlife worker said we could call today and see how it's doing and perhaps be there when they release it.
Here is a photo of some of the ones who didn't survive, as well as a few other, happier wildlife shots....























Deer like to browse through the field across the street from our schoolyard from time to time...




















And here's a shot of Sunny and Cherry the squirrel, experiencing a minor detente.




An update: the wildlife supervisor said our waxwing made it through the night, but is still not moving much and not eating, so they're not ready to release it yet. They gave it some homeopathics, interestingly enough, and he said it's not doing poorly, but it's obviously still injured. Sooo, I'm glad we took it in (I had the thought as we were driving off that maybe we should just leave it out to fly away, instead of trekking halfway to Loveland with it, but I guess it was more injured than I realized.)