Every day has its little dramatic incidents. This morning's could have been a heartbreaker. But it did turn out to be a lesson in the intelligence of other animals around us. The perseverance and courage of one little bird saved another. Had that tiny creature, a song sparrow, not persisted in his efforts to guide his mate to freedom, tragedy would have been imminent and we would have been heartbroken to discover an inert little corpse in our garage.

We've had other incidents with wildlife managing to get themselves into trouble. On several occasions a robin one time and a squirrel another, tumbled down our chimney. We'd had encounters of a similar nature where we were able to gently extract unfortunate little creatures before they flew or fled in panic through the house, to carry them to the freedom of the great outdoors. The robin, however, flew into the two-story space of the living room and it took awhile for it to discover that if it flew in the right direction it could access freedom through our open front door. The squirrel needed to be trapped, and it was difficult, both to see its fear and concern that it wouldn't be injured, but my husband managed to give it its freedom as well.

In this instance, a little song sparrow had somehow been curious or unaware enough to fly into the garage at a time when one of the doors were open. Days earlier my husband imagined he heard a faint rustle, then thought nothing of it. This morning, though, he realized that faint sound must have been the bird he saw flying about the garage. He opened both doors. The bird settled on the horizontal plateau that the opened garage doors presented, seemingly unaware that right below the doors were two great yawning spaces open to freedom.

I watched as the little bird flew from the front to the back of the garage, then returned once again to perch on top of the open doors. Meanwhile, a frantic little song sparrow, evidently its mate, was attempting to gain the trapped bird's attention. The free bird would venture cautiously to the entrance of the garage, lift itself a few feet into the air, and flutter outside. But its companion, trapped above in its self-imposed difficulty, wasn't able to see its mate's actions, though the free bird attempted time and again to lead the other to freedom.

This went on for some time, until finally the little male flew past the threshhold of the garage which my husband had vacated, driving the vehicles into the driveway to give them both more room to see and to manoeuvre. Flying halfway into the garage and lifting himself to a greater height, the little female finally appeared to understand the message, and she flew down finally from the top of the garage, to exit the open doors.

She flew to the bottom of the closest of our garden urns, appearing to be dazzled by her sudden exposure to full light, while her mate rested above, until she was sufficiently rejuvenated to be able to fly off with him. She was without doubt hungry and thirsty and exhausted.

And we were jubilant on their behalf.