If I raised the question, “What would be the last
thing you would expect to happen while watching your son’s flag football game?”
you probably still couldn’t come up with what happened to me and my family.
As we were sitting on the sidelines enjoying the game,
a low-flying bird came swooping in attempting to land on my daughter’s head! It
honestly came out of nowhere. We were seated by ourselves on the tree lined
side of the field. I was able to calm my daughter’s shock and fear once I
showed her that the bird was not some wild animal, it was in fact, somebody’s
pet!
Now, we’re sitting at the outdoor fields of the
Pontiac Silverdome, far from any populated area, wondering where this very
social cockatiel, an Australian parrot (澳洲鸚鵡) could
have come from. I walked up to the bird and put out my hand. Immediately, it
hopped on and chirped in a friendly way. We looked around us and knew that we
could not just leave and suppose that the bird would return to where it came
from. This was a very domesticated bird that needed help or it would not
survive.
The flag football game had ended so we walked the bird
over to other groups of adults and asked if they knew of anyone who had lost a
bird. All the kids were excited about the bird and fed it with some post game
snacks. The bird’s nails were getting long and he was looking pretty dirty, so
we knew it had been out here for a long time and was hungry. Since its wings
were clipped, it could fly a little but probably not more than 100 yards or so
at a try. We all just scratched our heads as a group wondering what to do with
the lost bird.
We explained to the kids that this bird needed our
help since it was someone’s pet and would not know how to get its own food, and
it could not fly well since its wings were clipped. The kids understood, and
all of them wanted to take the bird home! The parents however, knew this was not
a good choice as one had a large dog, another two cats, etc. We explained to
the kids that one of us could take the bird home for the night and then bring
it to the Humane Society in the morning in hopes to connect it to its owners.
We couldn’t keep the bird. It wasn’t ours. This was tough for the kids to
understand at first. We couldn’t just leave the bird either. There was no way
it could attend itself. The group of us sat around the Silverdome practice
fields for quite a while trying to determine the best course of choice for the
lost bird. It was getting dark out but no one was willing to leave that parking
lot until we had a game plan for how to help the bird.
The owner of the football league, Chris Novak, offered
to take the bird. It was extremely nice of him and he really stepped in to help
while all the rest of us who had kids tugging on our shirts and begging to take
it home. We took a box and put a bunch of holes in it and he brought it home
for the night. Another mom went online and found a family that had lost a bird
that looked just like the one we’d found. She emailed the info to Chris who got
in touch with the family and the next day, reunited the bird with the family
that lost it almost 3 weeks earlier! When Chris emailed us to let us know, we
could not believe that this bird had traveled from The Rochester Tienken area
all the way to the Silverdome!
We were so happy to be able to save this bird and get
it back to its family. I showed my kids the email about how the other family
got their pet back. The family has 3 kids who were so happy to see their bird.
My kids realized what a nice ending this story had. Not only had we been able
to save this bird’s life, but we were able to bring it back to the family that
loves and misses him.
The life lesson in the missing bird story seemed to
miss its mark with my kids at first. They were a little bummed out that they
couldn’t keep the lost bird. I explained to them that when an animal or someone
needs help, you just can’t turn a blind eye and hope everything works out OK.
The “l(fā)ost bird incident” was also a reminder to them that teamwork and the
kindness of strangers can make a world of difference and that a group of
well-meaning strangers can work together to help someone. It wasn’t a heroic
act, but one that I knew had sunk in with my kids when they realized that
trying to help was the best and only real course of action.
1.What happened when the author watched his son’s
football games?
A．A parrot
tried to eat their food.
B．His daughter
was hurt by a parrot.
C．A parrot flew
towards his daughter.
D．A parrot
landed on his daughter’s head.
2.The underlined word “domesticated” in the
second paragraph probably means_______.
A．having been
abandoned B．having been
used to home life
C．having been
used to life in the wild D．having been
week and hungry
3.Who was the first one to find the bird’s owner?
A．The author B．Chris Novak
C．The Humane
Society D．A participant’s mother
4.What can be learned from the “l(fā)ost bird incident”?
A．Strangers can
also work well together.
B．Humane
Society helps children in teamwork.
C．Children can
keep lost injured pet birds home.
D．Helping
others is always regarded as a heroic act.
5.What did the author want to tell in the text?
A．How to help a
lost parrot to find home.
B．The
experience of watching a football games.
C．The
importance of teamwork and helping others.
D．How a parrot
can fly a long distance from home.
6.The best title of the text should be________.
A．What Animals
Can Teach Us
B．Complete Care
for a Lost Bird
C．Life Lessons
When You Least Expect It
D．Love First,
Teamwork and Kindness Second
