Saved to Die!

Friday morning I went over to my mom's so we could go walking. My nieces were up and so I spent some time with them while my mom got dressed and because they were there the gate was up blocking the stairs for the baby and so we had to go out the back door. When we went out to the deck I noticed a fat cat sitting in the back with a female pheasant running around it. I thought that was rather odd but realized there was a nest up there that the mother was trying to protect. I couldn't see anything else moving so I figured the pheasant was just sitting on the eggs, but I shoed the cat away, which was rather hard, it did not want to leave. When I was pulling out of the driveway I noticed the cat was heading back down the driveway to the back yard. I was annoyed and figured I would check it out when we got back from our walk. When we did get back my sister in law and nieces were out in the back and my sister in law was up in the garden. Come to find out the hen did have a nest full of chicks and the cat was trying to get at it. The hen had it hidden pretty well so it was hard to see but the cat found it and scattered the chicks. The girls had chased the cat away and Amanda was trying to gather up the chicks and put them back on the nest. I went up to help and when we thought we had them all we would find another. We counted 10 in all and when we were looking at them they were all different sizes and in different stages. They had to have hatched recently because some of them couldn't stand or really move much, some were just learning to squeek. They were so cute and soooo tiny. I have never been that close to a pheasant let alone a pheasant chick. While gathering them up I found one lost in the bushes, it was to cold to move so it just sat shivering. I picked it up and held it between my hands to warm it up, very tiny and very soft. We decided to move the nest to the other end of the yard so hopefully the cat won't find them. We have always had a problem with the neighbors cats and picking chicks out of the nests in the trees and then to see the cat trying to get the pheasants was really annoying. We had to scare the hen off the nest to gather the rest of the chicks and try to get her to follow us. She was very protective and at one point went after my niece and really scared her. I had shorts on and was afraid of coming away with bloody shins. Luckily she had gotten accustomed to my sister in law so she wasn't as mean to us when we tried to move her. When we picked up all the chicks we found 3 that were not moving and barely breathing so we put them in a basket with some rags. We also found a dead one in the bushes that I was going to take care of later. We got the perky chicks moved and the mother herded to them so they were together and nesting again and I went back to get the little dead one and dispose of it. When I went to get it it was moving around a little and as I picked it up it started to move more and more. As it got warmer it moved more and was even trying to stand up and squeek. We eventually got them all back to the mom, all but one which died. After they were with the mom she moved the nest a couple times and at one point some of the chicks were out in the open and a magpie swooped in and grabbed one. So, we save them and then they die anyways. Kind of sucks but I guess thats life, everywhere you look there is something that will snare you if you aren't aware and paying attention. There are evils everywhere in the world and you have to learn to protect yourself from it. I checked on them a little later and could only see two chicks and they had learned from their mom what to do when there is danger, they froze and blended in very well with the surroundings. We are given different examples to learn from to protect ourselves too. Its kind of sad though that out of 10 chicks there aren't many left. Maybe its kind of cheesey but it kind of made me think.

Here are some pictures I got, the chicks are so hard to see and blend in really well.