Thunk!

Yesterday after work Joe and I were relaxing on the couch when there was a loud "thunk" against the windows to the back yard. Had one of us thrown Oscar's toy against the window accidentally?  We looked at each other and Joe went to see what caused the loud noise.  Turns out it was a confused baby bird.  It sat stunned, blinking on the back patio while Oscar and Pheebs barked savagely from the living room. I finally managed to squeeze out of the house without releasing the hounds.  Joe seeing me struggling with the dogs said "It's going to die anyway." 

I scooped up the bird and carried it out of the dog yard and set him on a low branch of a tree.  As you can tell from the pictures, he was really out of it.  He let me get inches away with my iPhone to snap the photographs. 

I left him alone and went back inside.  I told Joe I thought he was old enough to survive because he had plenty of flight feathers.  It wasn't as if he'd fallen out of the nest and couldn't fly back.  When I went back out to check on him, he was still sitting in the low branch I'd placed him on.  My heart sank.  Poor guy has brain damage, I thought.  But as I got closer, he hopped to a branch to get away from me. Yay! Then flew up into the big red oak tree, and I felt like I'd done a good deed. 

Anyone know what kind of bird it was?  I think it may be a meadowlark of some sort. Maybe not, he was on the small side.