A cardinal in distress

[Victor]

I realize that this is a pigeon outlet, but I thought I would share this with everyone and I know that the majority of you here are open minded with all creatures.Yesterday at noon, our cat(one we rescued 5 years ago)brought in a cardinal into the kitchen thru our doggie door.The male red bird was screeching loudly.This sound caught my attention while I was cleaning my pigeon cage.At first I imagined it was my boy watching the nature channel or my daughter playing a video game.I decided to see what was going on when I discovered "Lil Kitty" had a red bird in its mouth.I yelled for him to let go of the bird, which he did.The cardinal flew into the living room.I saw feathers and blood drops on the floor.Knowing the deathly impact that cat saliva has on our feathered friends, we knew that the bird had to be caught.It took us 20 minutes to catch him, as he was very fast and we did not want to inflict anymore injury than necessary on him.My wife Bev and I placed him in a spare cage and he seemed pretty lively. Bev suggested we take him to our vet to be treated.There was an opening for 3:30 but I had to be at work by then, so she said she would handle it.The vet who treated our pigeon last spring for bb wounds looked at him but choose not to get him out of his cage to prevent further trauma to the bird, but gave her some anti-biotics to sprinkle in the seed and water for a start.Bev phoned me at work a couple of times to give me up-dates on him, and he seemed active and fine.Unfortunately moments before I got home, he passed on.I found him sitting on the corner of his cage quietly and seemed at peace.I knew then our efforts had failed. This morning we explained to our children the "Red" was too sick to get better and God took him to heaven.The kids each held him and said their goodbyes.My three year old,as he held him brought him to his chest as if to hug him and said,"poor Red,Red die,bye bye Red."It was a sad day.~Victor