Nara needs some well-wishes

Catching the peafowl at night to move them, as was suggested to me, turned out not to be the right thing to do.  In hindsight, I think they would have handled that much better in daylight when they could have seen that it was me, but I was trying to do what I thought was easier on them.  Talk about backfiring.

Nara broke her leg that night, and I feel terrible about it.  Totally breaks my heart, and I feel like it's my fault.  It was awful catching them that night, they were terrified, they all shot straight up into the air and crashed down hard.  I didn't know until Saturday that she was injured, and I wish I had simply caught them in the morning instead when they could see their surroundings and see that it was me.

They are in a nice big pen in the shade of an oak tree up in Oak Run now, and understandably freaked out.  I have to keep reminding myself that they paced around a lot when I moved them the first time, months ago.  I left Nara alone for a couple of days, hoping she would start to improve, and not wanting to stress her out more by catching her again.  But this morning I felt that she was looking more lethargic, whereas Omar and Jovi are ceaselessly pacing (actually, they were starting to calm down a little by today, particularly Jovi).  So Jen and I cornered and caught Nara, which was a good bit easier than I anticipated.  She does indeed have a broken leg.  It's not in a place that can be splinted (up high on the "drumstick" near the thigh joint), but I was worried that she was just getting too stressed out having to move around to get food and water, and getting bumped into by the other two.  So we went ahead and put her in a crate with easy access to food and water.  I have to say that once she was caught she was extremely calm.  I checked on her before I left there today (I'm back in Wilton right now, gotta get some rest, do some laundry, and get ready to leave for Blade Show early Thursday morning) and she looked totally serene, sitting in the crate looking out at the other two birds.

It will take some time for them all to settle in.  They are like different birds again, won't get near me.  The timing is terrible, what with me not heading back up there for over a week.  They're very sensitive as to who they know and who they don't.  They are in excellent hands with "Dr. Jen" but my poor Nara, so sad!

She has a long recovery ahead of her, and they won't be released to free-range for a lot longer than I had originally planned.  Send some good thoughts her way!!!