“I knelt down to pick up the hatchling to . . . . what? Give it back to its mother? Here is your dying chick? Just before I made contact with it, she dive-bombed me. The mother actually dive-bombed me. I sat back on my hunkers in surprise and admiration. So slight, so drab, so courageous. She put me to shame. I stood up and backed off and she alighted in front of her young, setting herself and her pattering heart between us.
Babies die, I thought as I regarded her. That is the world we live in.
I did not make this world.
If I could, I thought, I would make a different world. I would make a different world for you and me, Sailor. And for this brave bird.
But I can't.”