And then this bird...

Mr Snork pulled off the I-5 to drop into our favorite GMart in Laguna Niguel, and there, along the off ramp, was the most beautiful stork looking bird.  Like this one:

Except, not by a lake, and far from the ocean.  Well, a 10 minute flight anyway.  I get super frantic, trying to figure out how to rescue the clearly lost confused bird.  (By stuffing in it in the back of the trucklet, of course, and taking it down to Dana Point swamps, from which we just came, and where it clearly belongs. )

Mr Snork, who's gotten creepy good at mind reading, gets frantic in turn, with, "Do you know what will happen to us with that bird in the vehicle??!"  He's also gotten wicked good with thwarting any good plan I have, and generally raining on my parades.   He got downright dramatic with, "It'll peck our eyes out, and beat us with its wings and claws".  Seriously.  I mean, it's a bird.  How hard could it be.  We could keep the windows open, and the wind G forces should keep it in the back.  

So, I try to appeal to his apparently nonexistant humanitarian side - He's lost!  And confused!  Look at him!!  His beak is made for fish, and here he is, on the side of the highway.  He is sad, and hungry, and he needs to be taken to a swamp, to eat!  

In all fairness, it really did look out of place, stalking around gingerly,  like he was trying to step around broken glass and cigarette butts, shaking his tiny head..  Until.. and phawk if, in the middle of my bird saving tirade, he didn't gracefully bend his tiny sad head into the grass, and come up with the biggest mouse ever.  With a wiggling tail, and everything.  And ATE it, with his skinny fish beak, and delicate throat, that apparently expands to fit mice size of sewer rats. 

The look Mr Snork gave me as the light turned green was something special.  I can tell my credibility as a wildlife expert has suffered a setback today it might take years to recover from, to say the least.