A Small Rescue by the Water
Walking along the waterfront at Bensville, I noticed a young corella sitting low among the mangroves.
It looked completely out of place down there. Its feathers were wet and bedraggled, and nearby an adult bird — presumably its mother — was clearly distressed, calling and moving anxiously above it.
My first thought was that the youngster had fallen from one of the trees.
The tide appeared to be going out, but leaving it down among the mangroves still didn’t feel right. It was young, vulnerable and far too close to the water.
I found a towel, gently picked it up and moved it to a nearby branch where it could sit safely above the ground.
Then there was nothing else to do but move away and wait.
For a while, the adult remained nearby, still watchful and unsettled. Eventually she came down to the branch.
And then she fed it.
That was the moment I knew it was where it needed to be.
It would have been easy to walk past and assume nature would sort itself out. Most of the time, that is exactly what we should do. But occasionally you come across a moment where something simply looks wrong, and all you can do is make the smallest possible intervention and give nature the chance to continue.
The young corella stayed with its mother.
And I carried on walking.