In early June in northern Big Stone County, a beautiful male Orchard Oriole in prime breeding plumage flew too low over the road and was left fatally injured on the pavement. I found him lying there without a visible wound. I gathered him up, placing him in a sandwich bag and transported him to a temporary morgue of a willing friend's freezer. Two weeks later he was transferred to a corner of my freezer.
The difference between the freezer in western Minnesota and mine: he knew everything in his freezer, including the bird, and my wife would freak if she knew what was in hers. The bird rested comfortably next to the flourless chocolate cake until this week, when my wife purchased a new refrigerator. With just a couple of days before the delivery truck would arrive to precipitate a crisis, I secreted the bird in a cooler with ice to help preserve him and I contacted Mike Zink, who is in charge of the bird collection of the U of M's Bell Museum. I was able to connect with one of his grad students after hours and leave the handsome bird in his future home. And my wife will never know. Steve Weston On Quigley Lake in Eagan, MN [email protected] ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
