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Unlikely bird rescue, UNC-CH campus




	I got a call last Friday from a man who found my name on the Chapel
Hill Bird Club webpage. He had come across a "shorebird" on the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus in the brick courtyard between
Lenoir (the dining hall) and Manning. It was under an orange bicycle, he
said, and looked stunned. He also said it resembled a gallinule, which he'd
seen when he worked at the N.C. Zoo years ago. And he wanted me to do
something. 
I arrived an hour later with absolutely no expectation of finding the bird.
But there it was, crouching under an orange bicycle. It looked utterly
exhausted and perhaps sick, with its bill tip resting on the brick patio to
support the weight of its head. Its eyes were closed. I easily picked it up,
and at that point it roused and struggled briefly, eyes open. I put it in a
bucket, covered the top with a towel, and thought about what to do. I still
didn't know exactly what the bird was. But I knew it was not any sandpiper
or woodcock or gallinule. But something similar.
The bird didn't seem to have obvious injuries, so my thought was to return
it to appropriate habitat, where it might at least have a chance to rest and
recover. 
I took it to a silted, shallow little bay, inaccessible to boats, on the
north side of Lystra Rd. opposite the end of the Bush Creek arm of Jordan
Lake. The habitat there looked perfect:  clumps of grass or sedge growing
out of shallow water. No fishermen. I squatted on the edge of the muddy
shore and lifted the bird out of the bucket. This time it pecked my hand
once -- a great sign. Not dead and maybe not even dying. I took a good long
look before letting it go -- at the red eye, down-curved orange beak, tawny
breast, small chickenlike body and spidery toes of a lovely rosy color. Oh
yes, and fine black and white barring on the belly -- something I suddenly
remembered seeing once before. Virginia Rail!  (My life bird was in
Minnesota last summer.) 
When I released the rail, it stalked away from me across three feet of mud
until it reached the water. It waded toward the first clump of grass,
stopped and drank, then worked its way along the water's edge, stopping
occasionally by other clumps. It behaved just the way I imagined a normal
rail should. And then it disappeared in a thick stand of grass and didn't
show itself again.
A happy ending? Yes, even for a confirmed pessimist like me. It just
delighted me to see that rail walk away alive. I knew it had a chance. I
also thought with gratitude of the polite young graduate student who took
the trouble on a holiday weekend to search a website for someone to call.
And I was glad I happened to be in my house and near the phone instead of
wandering around the yard. 
Sometimes the stars do line up just right.

Ginger Travis
near Chapel Hill, NC