Connection

This morning I drove down to my beautiful and beloved lake. Before I even turned off the engine, I noticed an Ahinga (a Florida water bird) sitting on the dock – the same one who had been there a few days earlier. When I had first spotted him, he appeared to have a long worm or a long piece of intestine in his beak. As I watched him, however, it looked like he was trying to scrape something off his beak rather than eat the something. Looking more closely, I thought what I saw was a piece of rope about 4 inches long. Silently I swore at humans who dump nearly everything into the lake, ignorantly creating deadly situations for the resident wildlife. There was nothing I could do, so off to work I went.

But here he was again, still with that length of ‘something’ hanging from his beak. Now rather than try to scrape it off, he just sat there, burying his head under his wing. He’s starving, I thought to myself, becoming weaker and weaker. My heart was breaking but how could I help him. Maybe I could catch him?

I opened the door to my truck carefully, quietly…he didn’t move. I slipped off my outer flannel shirt…no response. I began approaching him over a distance of about 35 ft, expecting that at any moment he would startle and fly away. Amazingly, he didn’t. When I was about 3 feet from him I thought to myself ‘I’m going to do it.’ Two more steps and I threw my shirt over him and grabbed him! COOL !!! Except he immediately went for my eyes. I held his beak and examined the mess – and what a mess it was.

He did have rope, like clothesline line rope, wrapped and knotted completely around his beak. He was unable to open it enough to even get a drink of water. He would have perished for certain. But I had him now!

I immediately realized that this would be a two person job. I scanned the near empty parking lot until I found someone just emerging from her car. I called out to her and asked to help me. She agreed without reservation. Her name is Stacey.

I held the bird, holding his head and beak and she took the scissors I handed her and began to cut away the rope. It was quite a job and took some time. Soon we had the big piece off, but many small knots and fibers remained.

Fishing birds, like the Ahinga, have many small barbs or teeth on the ends of those long beaks. This enables them to hold the fish they catch so the fish cannot slip out of their beaks easily. The fibers of the rope were caught on these barbs making it quite difficult to finish the job easily. We wanted to be sure when we let him go that he was fully functioning again.

Interestingly, he stayed relatively still and quiet (except when I inadvertently let go of his beak and he pecked my face, ear and head) until the last fiber was removed. He knew when it was time to go. Stacey and I cheered in excitement when our rescue effort was successfully completed and he flew away, hopefully to enjoy his first meal in days. What a perfect moment! Stacey and I, complete strangers 30 minutes prior, hugged as only persons who have just accomplished a team effort, something meaningful will do.

WOW!

I am so blessed, I feel so prosperous because prosperity has little to do with money, and I feel so very connected to the Universe.

We are all connected to EVERYTHING.