I watched a robin die this morning.
Maybe a robin. I’m not good at identifying birds. At identifying anything. Trees, flowers, feelings, appropriate mates.
Redford was barking at the ground. I thought, “That’s about right.” But when I went out into the yard, there lay a flickering, floppity robin, its mouth opening in quick, wide yawns. I shooed Redford away and ran inside to get some Saran wrap. I didn’t have any rubber gloves, and I had heard that birds carry disease. Did I hear that? Maybe. Maybe I made it up.
I covered my hand in the plastic and picked up the bird. Its body was warm and weighed nothing. Nothing. How does an animal survive when it weighs zero pounds, zero ounces?
Its bird friends shrieked at me as I took it out of the back yard and placed it on the mulch. “I have to get ready for work,” I thought, but I stood there in my bathrobe, in my driveway, watching its beak open and close.
When I was eight or nine, I watched my cat Scratch (sister of Patch, of course) do the same thing. A speedy CRX came around the blind curve in front of my house and tagged her. She sprinted out of the road, which made me think she was OK. But when I followed her, I found her lying behind a tree, mouth opening and closing.
What is that? Why do animals do that? Will I, when the time comes?
Anyway, I watched a robin die today.
It wasn’t a very good day.
I’m sorry. Seeing that would really bother me too.
i love you amy. you are something else.
so different from what’s happening outside my house, you know? weird. sending you loving hugs, and a reminder that dvr’d SYTYCD fixes (almost) everything. <3
I know this post is old, but it’s 3am and I’m reading through all your archives. I’m a veterinarian, I work ER, and there’s not a lot of action going on at 3am.
So I thought I’d answer your question. That gasping is called agonal respiration, and is a body’s reflexive response to severe hypoxia, which precedes (or sometimes follows) death. These breaths can happen in the absence of heart beat or even brain activity. Generally, when they get to the point of agonal breathing, we don’t get them back even if they’re in the hospital and being watched like a hawk. I don’t know if you ever even think about this anymore, but I thought you’d like to know that it’s just part of dying, and there is really anything you could have done for that bird, or for Scratch, at that moment. :(