Rescuing the impaled Robin

Click on the pic on the left for a closer look (here's a set on Flickr). On Sunday my wife went out to play with the kiddies and she came in and told me to come outside and see something. There on the lawn was a baby robin, just sitting there, with a small stick impaled through it's tiny body. It was pretty freaky because it did not seem to mind being impaled at all. He didn't look to be in pain or shock and darn it, the stick looked "old". Like it had been there awhile. What are you supposed to do?

Ya pull it out! Or not! Oddly enough from watching C.O.P.S. on T.V. (ooh I knew that would come in handy one day) I learned that when a human being has been stabbed, you don't pull the knife or whatever it is protruding from the body because it is actually keeping the blood in. You pull it out and the person bleeds out. So I actually contemplated leaving the stick in and just trimming it a bit but HEY! They poor bird has a stick in him, and he wasn't gonan be seeing the birdy vet anytime soon! I figured it must have been through the meat and not any organs or he wouldn't be so chipper and all that so I put on some gloves, nabbed him with a handy butterfly net and proceeded to pull Mr Stick out.

He made a big PEEP when I did it and the darned stick broke and I had to get the rest from the other side (good thing i didn't trim it). But when it was out I compared the two ends and they matched. Some of the stick looked like skin had healed over on it. I wonder how long he has been carrying that thing in his gut and out his back.

I put him in the garden and he hopped away. he actually came out and sat on top of a rock and looked at us. I think the littel bugger is going to be ok. Soon afterward he PEEPED again and a big Robin (with a full tail, must be mommy or daddy) swooped down and fed him a bug. I heard another peep and there's a bird just like him in teh tree behind me. So it must have been "leave the nest" day and the parental units feed them for a few days to get them on their way.

Freaky!