The bird you see cracking a slight smile in the photo below is Little Cheep. He may not have nine lives like his sworn enemy, el gato, but I know that he has at least two. Which is why he’s smiling.
My wife and I met the cockatiel quite suddenly on a Saturday morning in February. The tiny escapee—from where, we still do not know—was being attacked by two huge blackbirds outside our condo, one of which delivered a nasty bite above Cheep's right eye. We attempted a rescue when he paused underneath a bush, but he slipped through our hands and headed over the condo wall—toward a busy four-lane highway.
It seemed that Cheep was doomed.
But something told me to go bird hunting. As I strolled up the sidewalk, the exhausted little guy flew up from a narrow grass strip not three feet from the roadway and made a sharp right back into our condo complex, where my wife plucked him from a low-hanging tree branch.
Cheep isn’t the first animal I’ve ever rescued—I’ve saved a few abandoned cats over the years. But he’s certainly the most unusual. Best I can tell, his gray and white markings classify him as a white-face pied cockatiel. He’s a great singer, which is how he got his name. And he’s a reminder that there is a nice reward for those who take the time to show compassion to animals beset by misfortune. It’s called joy.
So I raise a toast to Little Cheep, the bird who was almost toast. In the space of 10 minutes, you—all 3 ounces of you—fought off bullies and man’s machines. Allow me to introduce you to Miss Emily Dickinson, who well over a century ago wrote a poem that I think was meant just for you. It starts like this:
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all
BARRY GLENN
BARRY.GLENN@orlandomagazine.com