Once upon a time, I was a journalist who loved animals. Now I am an animal lover who used to be a
journalist.
Life changes. Things
happen. Butterflies are promised, but
they don't show up. Instead, there might
be swallows.
I’ll explain. On a warm, windy day
in July, 2009, I had one thing on my mind. I wanted to take pictures of
Monarch butterflies that (I had heard) were stopping by Fountain Creek Regional
Park on their yearly migration. My
husband Mark was preoccupied in his studio, intently working on Bach inventions
he would teach his bass guitar students.
So I loaded my camera equipment in
my car and headed south to the park, which was blissfully quiet on a weekday
morning. The nature trail was empty except for an occasional bull snake
undulating across the path. The creek was quiet, too, with a lone great
blue heron skimming the water. I paused often, waiting for the magical
butterflies to appear, but there were no flashes of orange and black.
I was disappointed – I had been
told there were butterflies, I expected butterflies, and I couldn’t find
butterflies. But I kept walking, finding a rowdy gathering of cormorants
and pelicans and, finally, unexpectedly, a flight of grinning swallow
fledglings.
Their eyes were bright and
curious, and they crowded the mud-and-sticks nest like it was a clown car.
As I took pictures of the unruly group, their mother dove at my head, letting
me know she wasn’t pleased with my presence.
I took some pictures and moved on,
and I didn’t think much about swallows again until two years ago. I
had other things on my mind. A few
months after my butterfly expedition, my husband was diagnosed with cancer, and
in seven months, he was gone.
Shortly after that, a longtime
friend offered me a job at her business – a veterinary clinic.
Stunned by grief, I accepted her
offer. I was grateful for the diversion and the chance to figure out my new
life.
The clinic job had come up
unexpectedly – like the swallows in the park. I was wandering, looking
for butterflies, and happened upon something totally different. And
the clinic allowed me to establish relationships with the best kind of people -
animal lovers - and their pets.
There was something else, too. My
friend is a wildlife rehabilitator, so the clinic often has wild animals - squirrels,
foxes, rabbits, raccoons, doves, pigeons, mice, and an occasional fawn or elk
calf – rooming in a small cabin next door.
Sick, injured or orphaned, they are brought to the clinic for medical
care.
One day, a wildlife officer
arrived with a cardboard box of swallows. They were just days old, and
had been clubbed to the ground by a rancher cleaning nests off his
buildings. There were dozens of the tiny birds, all beaks and
fuzz. Some died right away. The survivors were divided among
several rehabilitators and the clinic ended up with a dozen. Under
meticulous care, they thrived, and several of us pitched in to help satisfy
their voracious appetites. Live meal worms were the food of choice, and
they required several hand feedings a day.
Soon they had feathers, and they
crowded each other on a pine branch in their cage. Their bright chirping announced
the beginning of each day.
Weeks later, they were flying
around the cage and ready for a new home. We found a secluded pond nearby where
they could feast on insects. I was there
when we opened their cage as the sun set behind the mountains one evening, and we
watched as one by one, they flew away without looking back, swooping and diving
with abandon.
We haven’t seen swallows at the
clinic since then. Right now, there’s a flicker and a tiny red fox kit
recovering from injuries. In about a
month, other springtime babies will be brought to us for our care. We never
know what each day will bring. We do know there will be sadness and happiness,
heartbreak and hope. That’s life.
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