The Day Sky Fell

Hey, everyone! Full disclosure, I have no idea how to start this blogpost without A. beating an already very dead but omnipresent horse or B. sounding tone deaf. So I will acknowledge the big, ugly elephant we have in the room and leave it at that. I could go into how it's personally impacted me, but I sort of hate writing up a story before I know how it ends, and we are a long way from knowing that. I had to leave La Gomera and return to Ohio to ride this out. I'll wax poetic about it at a later date. 

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For now, I'd like to share a story that came to pass just a couple of weeks before things went left, just after Carnaval wrapped up and things were settling down (or so I thought!). On March 4th, I was having a typical afternoon of lunch, tidying the house, and teaching private English lessons when I got a call from Oscar. While at work, he'd picked up some fallen palm fronds and was taking them out to the dumpster when he spotted a nestling Eurasian collared-dove on the sidewalk. He instinctively knew it was too young to be out of the nest, much less in the middle of a cat-infested street. He looked everywhere for a nest but couldn't find one, so he was going to bring it home where it would be safe. 

This wasn't the first time I'd gotten a call like this from Oscar. He works overlooking a well-vegetated courtyard, and has a huge heart and a keen eye for creatures in danger. And I have experience caring for birds, as well as access to the bird rehab oracle (my mom). Usually, the situations that crop up involve doves with cat injuries that we can't do much for (here's an obligatory plug to KEEP YOUR CATS INSIDE!). Another time, he found a nest of Canary Islands chiffchaffs in pin feathers that had fallen to the ground while the maintenance crew was pruning the courtyard. With my mom's guidance, he relocated the nest to a tall bush, and the parents went right back to feeding them. But a few days later, maintenance pruned again, and unknowingly threw the nest into trash bags that then went to the dumpster. Oscar arrived to work later that day, immediately noticed the nest wasn't there, and went sprinting out to rip open the bags and dig through them. He managed to rescue two of the three babies (one didn't make it, unfortunately), salvaged the nest, and once again relocated it. The parents swooped in within minutes, and all was well once again. A week or so later, the babies fledged successfully, and to this day chiffchaffs sit right next to Oscar while he works. 

spot the newly-fledged baby

My sweet guy

So, an hour or so after his call, Oscar brought home the baby dove. Upon seeing it, I knew it was about a week away from true fledging age, especially after watching a pair of the same babies grow up in a nest right outside our bedroom window in December. When they were its size, they started looking around a bit more, and eventually took a few steps out of the nest, but didn't actually go anywhere for quite a while. I stretched out this baby's wings and looked it over for any sign of injury and saw nothing. It was just scared, and probably pretty hungry. But I was going to do my best to help it. 

It was a bit scary to undertake my first rehab project without my mom's physical presence, but we were in constant contact on WhatsApp and she was firing instructions my way. At 6 pm on a Wednesday, the local pet store and the vet were already closed, meaning that I'd have to improvise for its food for the night. My mom recommended I use gofio, the flour-like substance made of toasted and milled mixed grains that's a staple in Canarias. I also mixed in some ground almonds and made a loose paste with a bit of water. Luckily, I'd been able to acquire a syringe at the pharmacy, so I loaded that up and got to work. Feeding the little thing was not as easy as it had been with the other species I'd worked with, because baby doves don't actually gape. Instead, when the parent comes to the nest, the babies reach into the mouth of the parent to eat the nutrient-rich food (called "dove milk") that it regurgitates. Fun! 

At least giving it water was easier.

After we'd gotten a full syringe of makeshift food into its stomach, things settled down a bit and we could really take in its presence. I felt decidedly feminine energy, but left the naming to her original finder. Oscar has a knack for naming that always makes me laugh. I like to test it out by asking him to name dogs we pass on the street, as he has a strict but made-up system for it that is not to be questioned. All golden retrievers are named Chester, all mid-sized black dogs are Firulais, all mid-sized brown dogs are Whiskey... and so on. 

He looked at out dovelet for a second and settled on the name Sky (pronounced "eh-sky" in Oscar English). It fit her quiet, reflective nature and pointed to our goals for her.  

Sky it was.