Those of us who live and work and love and sometimes rescue animals are often drawn into what I call the God  Business of the animal world, the boundary and perspective and ethical issues that come whenever one living thing presumes to rescue another living thing, in the process challenging the very laws of nature, and perhaps, even of their God.

As some of you know, I’ve been taking photographs of a nest of Phoebe chicks newborn in a nest in an eave of Maria’s studio. This morning, when Maria went outside, she found two of the three chicks were dead, a third, covered in mites and small worms was barely alive.

Life. Death. Life. One comes with the other, if I can’t accept and understand one, I can’t accept the very nature of life itself. And this is the issue that comes up for me so often when it comes to animal rescue. Baby birds in nests rarely, if ever, can be saved by non-professional human beings.

Without thinking, I found myself slipping across a boundary I know better than for me to cross. I got on the phone. What do baby birds eat? How do I feed it to them? Maria picked up the chick in a cloth, we started feeding it maple water, then crushed cheerios – things one vet friend and a farmer told me to try.

Both said it was nearly impossible to save a sick or stricken chick. The mother Phoebe, who had hovered for days near the nest, was nowhere to be seen. It appeared as if some disease had stricken these babies.

We spent a frantic half-hour rushing around, trying one thing, trying another, trying to clean the bird, cheered when he opened his beak and took some food. We went up and down, drawn by hubris and human emotions into the glory and power of being God.

My head was spinning. Where could I get a dropper? What ingredients would I need to buy? What websites could I find online?

And then, at one point, Maria turned and looked at me and we both shook our heads. This was not where we wanted to go, we pulled ourselves back across the boundary of the real live of real animals, of nature and it’s own laws.

We deal with death all the time – dogs, donkeys, lambs, ewes, bears, deer, raccoons, possums, skunks, moles and mice.

This one seemed different, at least at first. Babies are so helpless, they touch the deepest parts of us when they struggle.

We pulled ourselves back into the realm we know well.  The baby was barely alive. The worms and parasites were already doing their work. Maria handed the bird to me. I think we should kill it, she said.  She is plenty tough, but there are some things she can’t do, and many things I can’t do.

This was one I could do.

I took the baby bird out back and gave it a quick and merciful death, as I perhaps should have done from the first. A week-old bird with no mother, covered in mites and worms deserves mercy and compassion, not human projections of mercy and compassion.

Maria went out back and buried the birds, and I thought about this also. When an animal dies on our farm – and we have lost many, as almost anyone who lives with animals knows,we return it to nature. We leave it for the worms and coyotes and vultures and foxes and owls and crows.

She said she really was thinking of the burial because the bird was covered in mites, perhaps even maggots. She wanted them underground. That made sense.

Baby birds do not need the rituals of human beings, I believe,  they are not conscious of death and its traditions.

But we had both slipped, however briefly into that other realm.  And then grounded ourselves. Still, it was upsetting, seeing the small creature opening its mouth, hungry for food, abandoned in the nest and dying.  There were lots of reasons for that to touch each of us, and deeply.

I do not ever tell other people what to do or feel and animal rescue is a powerful thing, an emotional quagmire, an ethical morass, a personal and individual experience. I know many people who handle it well, and many people who lose all perspective and get lost in it.

It takes work and thought. The more we know and face ourselves, the better we can handle it.

Countless animals struggle and die out of our sight and consciousness, that is the nature of their real lives. We cannot save them all, nor should we try. It is not up to us to set the balance of nature or disrupt it. Sometimes we can help, sometimes we can’t.

The baby Phoebe reminded me that the ethics of animal rescue are complex. I respect nature and it’s laws and ways. I try not to project my own stories and needs and emotions onto helpless and dependent creatures. And I remember always, the boundaries. To think of them, know what they are for me, and honor them.

When dealing with animals, I remember always ,that I am not God, and I do not wish to play God.

Life. Death. Life. Death is as much a part of life as birth and rebirth.

Sometimes we need to honor death as we need to honor life. By standing back and bowing our heads to it. We do not have miracles in our kits.