I could go on and on about this Springtime, shade-loving Lily of deciduous woodlands, but I’ll give you just one “interesting” fact instead….The “rams” part of the plant’s name probably derives from a much older Scandinavian word meaning “rank” which refers to both the odour and very strong flavour that cows milk acquires when the animal grazes on the plant! Enough? Ok, one more….we were taught that juice from the bulbs will double as an effective antiseptic when applied to a wound with swabs of Sphagnum Moss!

To coincide with a certain person’s return from New Zealand Very Poorly Greenfinch I would have been rather more concerned about what was actually wrong with this little Greenfinch (given the symptoms it was displaying) but for the fact that I was certain that it was the same bird that managed to stun itself quite badly a couple of days ago when it flew into the living-room window! It was fairly slow to recover at the time, but eventually did so well enough to fly off.I noticed it again yesterday evening perched on the lantern-feeder, but in an uncharacteristic, almost trance-like state and thought that it might be suffering from a mild concussion.By this morning however, judging from the condition of its plumage and its general demeanour, I’d have said that its state of health had most definitely deteriorated. For long periods it struggled to keep its eyes open, appeared to be in a great deal of pain and was spending most of its time just sitting around lethargically on or near the feeding station with its feathers all fluffed out.I decided to take a couple of pictures before the neighbour’s cat took advantage of the situation and, just as I pressed the shutter to get the picture shown below, the bird suddenly sneezed violently and I caught the exact moment that a thick stream of pus literally exploded from the little bird’s nasal passages! It then became very clear that a serious infection had taken hold and that the poor little thing was in considerable pain and was very unhappy!There was absolutely nothing that could be done for it and I knew that it would most certainly die within the next twenty-four hours, but not before enduring hours of agony, confusion and distress….so I shot it through the heart and it died instantly!

I took the dead bird to a local vet I know and asked if he could give it a quick examination to see exactly what the problem had been. He telephoned me today to confirm that it had almost certainly been the victim of a window strike and that it had fractured the very base of its upper mandible about two thirds of the way across just behind the nasal passages. This area of the bill is very sensitive (a bit like the quick of your finger nail) and it had rapidly become badly infected! He was fairly certain that the bird would have been running a high temperature, that it would have been having great difficulty breathing, experiencing considerable pain and would probably have succumbed within twenty-four hours! Feeding would have been virtually impossible considering that it’s a Finch and so heavily dependent on the seed-crushing capability of its bill! It had also sustained damage to its left eye and, even without the injury to its bill, may well have lost its sight!I know that some of you will be horrified by this and the old hate-mail will come pouring in as usual, but I wont sit back and watch something suffer like that if there’s nothing else that can be done for it just to satisfy the ethical and moral sensibilities of the holier-than-thou brigade…..

Believe me, if there had been anything else that could have been done, then I’d have tried it….the likes of “Scraps”, “Peg”, “One-Eyed Jack”, “Phil” the Fox Cub and an endless list of others over the years bear testimony to that!I needn’t have even mentioned it, but recounting it in this way helps me deal with it….which may seem ridiculous to most people (after all, it was only a bird!), but it’s something I feel I need to do, given some of the events of my past!So, whether it’s a little bird such as this one, a horrifically injured Badger or Fox involved in a recent collision with a vehicle travelling too fast along country lanes or a terrified Deer slowly bleeding to death from multiple gunshot wounds inflicted by sadistic poacher-morons using totally inappropriate ammunition….I/we do what needs to be done and I/we do it mostly because vets refuse to come out and do it for us!