That second time I killed a bird

I already shared a previous story when I ACCIDENTLY killed a pigeon when I was a toddler, feel free to read it its in my profile.

This on the otherhand takes place years later when I was around 11-ish. On this particular day my dad was gardening and calls me from outside. I go see him and notice he has his hands together and a smile as he opens his hands slightly and shows me the cutest little bird. Obviously I get excited and think its really cool.

It turns out this bird could not quite fly yet and seems it got out of his nest, my dad seen him on the ground and picked him up. Looking back on this I really wish he didn't show me or left the bird alone because it all went downhill from here and for all you animal lovers out there I apologise in advance, I f***** up, I love animals too, I'm one of you, I loved this little thing too much and learned a valuable lesson.

So my dad likes seeing me happy so he offers me to hold it, during the transfer I could tell the bird was freaking out, it managed to gets its wings above my hands so I was holding it in an unatural and awkward way. The first thing I noticed was that this bird was really hot and sweating, I also felt his heart beating really fast, and as my dad was telling to tighten my grip it wriggled out of my hands and I let it as I was kinda scared of hurting it and let it go. It hoped away a few metres and my dad picked it up again showing me how to hold it without hurting it. This time I held him correctly but the poor thing was stressing out and I wanted to do my best for him to be comfortable with me and not be in the state he was there.

Being so young and naive I could see myself and this bird forming a strong bond like a man and his dog. I started thinking how cool it would be to have a pet bird. I could still feel his heart beating fast and my attempts to form this bond between this undomesticated bird and not too bright little kid began as i started slowly and carefully stroking its head and back with my thumb. So I made my way to the garage and managed to open my brother's old gerbil cage and placed him in there thinking it was perfect. Unfortunatly I was shocked to see the bird trying to fly away as if there was no cage only to hit the little metal bars repeatedly. I tried putting old sheets over the cage but I could still hear the bird smashing his body on the sides of the cage but he must of gotten tired or hurt itself because he eventually stopped. I left and came back to check on him, I could once again see his little chest beating fast, it was heartbreaking, I wanted to do my absolute best to make him feel better. I ran inside to get him food and water. I grabbed some oats, bread, cornflakes and some muesli. I crushed the 3 cereal into tiny bits he could eat and broke the bread into crumbs, leaving 4 small piles. I gave him a small bowl of water also.

Now at this point its getting dark I've been trying to feed this guy for 20-ish minutes and I conclude he must not be hungry and since he's not moving much I realize he must be tired. So I pet him for a while, put the sheet over the cage and leave him for the night only to find him dead in the morning. So if you really do love something, let it go.