The Thrush

It happened so quickly.

I was sitting having a coffee with my wife in a relatively new Starbucks. It has a drive through but we were inside the building. I had my back to the large glass window behind me when suddenly, there was a loud bang. I swivelled around to see what had happened and a young thrush was lying on the ground. It had flown full force into the glass windows and was in great distress.

I looked to see what I could do. Sometimes when this happens, the bird stuns itself and recovers so I waited a minute to see would this be the outcome. I hoped it would but - it wasn’t. The thrush rolled onto its back and as far as I could see it had broken its neck. It writhed for a few seconds in obvious distress and then movement stopped. I watched the little thing breathe its last and then, it was dead.

I was horrified.

The bird was lying in its back on the ground at the part of the drive through where cars pulled up to get their coffee. They could all see it. I jumped up, ran out round the outside perimeter of the building, eased myself past the cars queuing there and got to the little bird. It was still warm but plainly dead.

I gently lifted it up into my hand. It had the most lovely colours and it was clearly a young thrush. It never got to adulthood. I took it to a quiet grassy overgrown area and gently laid it to rest, in nature.

This incident upset me. I am an animal lover and seeing this bird lose its life in this way was horrible. I fully understand that nature is “red in tooth and claw” but when you see things like this happen right in front of you, it is dreadful.

I wanted to write this as my little epitaph to the little thrush.

We are all God’s creatures.