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bird’s inability to show expression; the problem is with the average human’s inability to perceive subtlety. Perhaps if birds had giant eyebrows to waggle and fleshy lips to distort, they’d be easier to figure out.
    After a few days I gathered armloads of brush from a nearby field, piled it under one of the hanging branches, and then tossed the finch into the air, hoping that he wouldn’t need to use his makeshift landing pad. He flew halfway across the flight and landed gracefully on the branch, sending me into paroxysms of glee. A few days later he wasn’t flying as well, sending me into the depths of gloom. I can’t keep this up, I thought, suddenly appreciating another advantage to working at a wildlife center: instant emotional support. If a grounded bird starts flying, you celebrate with your compatriots; if he takes a turn for the worse, you share the pain. In my case John was gone for the day, so I had to wait for my support team to return home from elementary school.
    â€œThat little finch wasn’t flying so well today,” I said, after they’d jumped off the school bus and were accompanying me up our long dirt driveway.
    â€œWhat?” Skye gasped, looking stricken. “Is he going to die?”
    â€œNo!” I said quickly. “He’s only….”
    â€œHow do you know?” she demanded. “How do you know he’s not lying dead on the ground right this minute?”
    â€œHe’s not dead,” said Mac. “And he’s not going to die, either. He’s probably just tired from all that flying.”
    â€œThere you go,” I said, adding the final link to our emotional daisy chain. “He’s going to be fine.”
    Soon all I needed to do was to walk toward the finch and raise my hand, and he’d launch himself from his branch and fly to another. I kept wishing for another finch to keep him company—not that I wanted another bird to be injured, but if one were to be injured I wished that he would find his way here. This was where I made a serious “wish error.” As anyone who has ever heard a fairy tale can attest, all wish genies get a big kick out of messing with wishers who are not specific. I wished for another finch, and suddenly one appeared. But it was not a house finch.
    It was an American goldfinch.
    What the heck! one might reason. Goldfinches are in the same family as house finches. At least it’s a finch. That was my reaction.
    At first.
    I was unprepared for the phone call. A friend of a friend had found the goldfinch, dazed and motionless, outside one of her windows. She had placed it carefully into a cardboard box; when she opened the box a half hour later, it hadn’t moved. Could you please take him? she asked. He’s so beautiful and I don’t know what to do for him. I can drive him right over.
    I hesitated, and a war broke out inside my head. I had spent a year working out the master plan, each subplan, and every individual detail. I had set my rehabilitation rules in stone: no injured birds. No birds from anyone but other rehabbers. No birds that couldn’t go right into the flight cage. I envisioned myrules as bowling pins and the goldfinch as a speeding ball, heading down the center line. I can’t crack this early in the game, I thought.
    â€œUhhhhh,” I said. “Actually, I’m not really set up for…I’m in a…kind of….”
    It is almost impossible to predict how an impact injury, whether it be from a window or a car, will turn out. Minutes after the injury some birds are raring to go; others are dead. Some have broken bones or spinal injuries along with their head trauma, others appear to have no ill effects. Some will be bruised and in pain but appear to be improving, then three days later they’ll die when the blood clot you can’t see reaches a certain part of their brain. Many rehabbers keep birds who have suffered head trauma