On a perfectly crafted evening, my family and I went on a nature walk one day. We usually like to take pictures of the sky and river, especially when the sun goes down because the areas we frequent provides beautiful landscapes. Our favorite destination to visit is an area filled with natural beauty that is located within a simple five minute walk behind our home. We do not have to travel far to take in what nature has to offer. We truly enjoy it. 

We are fortunate to live by a rushing river. If you listen carefully, you can hear the soothing sounds of water swooshing. There is also a dam that steadily holds water from flowing too quickly into a lower river area. After we finally reached the area, I started walking over the bridge that holds the dam, and soon after, I heard a loud strong bird call awfully close to me. I normally hear birds singing in the distance but this sound was different and peculiar. The intensity and tone of this bird call made me think it was a stress call. The piercing sound quickly captured my natural curiosity so I had to investigate. It is in my nature to explore things even if I don’t find an answer. For me, it is about the journey not the destination.  

I started looking below the dam to see if I could find out where this sound was coming from. There are four sections that make up the dam. Each section has a thick iron plate that that holds the water back. Each iron section is placed close to a thick concrete wall that forms an approximate four to five inch rectangular gap. As I looked closer to the left most positioned section, I noticed a small black bird nervously walking at the bottom of the gap. The bird could still move but it could not fly its way out of the gap because the space between the iron and the concrete was just too narrow. The bird just kept pacing back and forth while it screamed loudly as though to tell me to hurry up and rescue it.  

The bird was apprehensive of my presence. I know I would be scared if I saw a man getting close to me like that.  The gap was too narrow so I was not going to be able to reach my huge fingers to grab it and pull it out. I began to think of how I was going to get this small, wet, and weak bird out of its predicament. I didn’t know how long it had been there. I did know that it was probably hungry so I knew I had to rescue this little soul. 

So I began to think. The only way the black bird was going to make it out of that trap would be by it climbing onto a hard object that was being pulled up. I quickly found a small wooden branch nearby. I stuck the wood in the gap but soon found out it was too thin to withstand the force of pushing it down the space. I was determined to save this little guy. Then, I looked for a bigger piece of wood in the wooded area. I managed to find a longer and thicker piece of wood that was perfectly sized to fit in the gap and hold the bird. I had this sense that the bird realized I was trying to save it. I do not know for sure but it sure felt like it. 

Finally, I stuck the piece of wood down into the iron and concrete section between the narrow gap. The bird was frightened at first but it instinctively climbed on the the piece of wood. He got on the wood but quickly hopped off because maybe he thought I was trying to hurt it. At that moment, I feared that the bird would not jump on the branch and I would fail to save it. So, I took the piece of wood out from the gap to rethink my strategy.  I had to get the weak and wet bird to climb on the wood so I could lift it up. On the next try, I reached in the gap with the wood and the bird just hopped on it as though it knew it was it’s last chance to get out of that miniature dungeon. The bird was on the branch finally. My only worry was that it would somehow get startled and jump off but it didn’t. It felt like a lifetime lifting the wood up with the bird on it. I was elated that it stayed on until I could reach the open space away from the trap it was in. At last the bird was free! Once it realized it was free, it quickly scurried towards a grassy area where it started feeding on ants and bugs. This told me that it was hungry and that it had been there for a long time. I did not envision that evening that I was going to be saving a crying caged in bird.