The story of a small bird
We saw a small bird sitting on the stone slab in the inner courtyard of the Five Immortals Temple. His mouth was fully open and he did not move anything except the head, the bird was looking at us, like if he was asking for help. It seemed scared and unable to fly. He was screaming. Had another animal tried to catch it? Was he thirsty? or asking for a manto (Chinese steamed bun) or had he lost his parents?
I asked Li Shifu to come out and have a look. He grabbed the bird and brought it into the living room with us. We gave him water. We fed him some manto and we were all told to keep an eye open for his mother.
Shifu inspected the bird for any visible injury, and we researched which kind of bird it was.
It seemed to be calmer in Li Shifu’s hands, like at peace. What was going on between the hands and the bird, is a thing that my eyes cannot see.
We have an old cage, that someone has used to bring birds up the mountain and release to the wild, we kept the bird in there, protected it from our cats, and kept and eye on its health.
Two days later we heard another bird circulating the area, it had a similar appearance and acted like a mother searching for its child. Cautious, yet it had a mission.
We brought a ladder and put it up against the tree. One student said that he can climb the ladder, but Li Shifu refused as unsafe jobs around the temple Shifu does himself – Working high above the ground on the mountain is the most dangerous job we have.
We took some sticks that had fallen and Shifu climbed up the tree to build a small platform for the bird. We put the baby bird inside its new home and waited, at first the mother carefully appeared at a distance, it took a while before they reunited, but they did after which they flew away together.
Why do animals come to the temple searching for help?
Can they see, or do they know more then we imagine they do?
