April Britt says she found the bird near the base of a tree Monday and returned it to its nest.
The 67-year-old Britt tells the Daily Hampshire Gazette the bird apparently couldn’t eat without assistance from the adult birds. The middle beak didn’t work well and the other two didn’t appear to be connected to the bird’s throat.
A scientist for the Massachusetts Audubon Society says animals with such abnormalities rarely survive birth, making the find all the more unusual. He says the deformities could have been caused by genetic or environmental factors.
The baby and adults were gone by Tuesday.
Here we have brought you the curious case of a real-life Benjamin Button, with a twist. A Brazilian
woman, who has neither aged, nor is getting any younger. Born on May 7, 1981, Maria
Audete do Nascimento still has the body of a baby.
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| Maria Audete |
Maria
belongs to a poor family, living in a mud house in Ceara, Brazil. Her family
consists of her father and his second wife, who has been caring for her ever
since her own mother died, 13 years ago. The family cannot afford to provide
any form of treatment for Maria, whose condition could have been reversed if
treated at birth. For now, she continues to live like a baby, unable to tend to
her own needs, and unable, even to speak. The home in which Maria lives,
however poor, does not seem short of love. Her step-mother, Dora, has taken
care of the woman-child since the day she was married. Dora believes that it is
the passion of her life, and that the child was sent to her as a gift of God,
to take care of.
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| Maria Audete |
Experts from
the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ceara believe that what Maria
suffers from is a severe deficiency of the thyroid hormone. As a result of
hypothyroidism, her body was never able to develop physically or mentally. They
also went on to say that if the case had been identified early on, Maria may
have grown up as a normal child. The University has agreed to provide free
treatment to Maria, to enable her to be a little more independent – to walk,
eat and say a few words. But for now she is, in some ways, what every parent
wishes for – a child that never grows up.
