A year ago, when I was transferred to the Mark W. Stiles Unit, in Beaumont, Texas, I was surprised to see a tall and bald Latino man tending to a pair of sparrows. I’m not sure why; there were birds, turtles, fish and cats at my last facility. But I mostly tuned them out. Maybe it was just a prison mindset: I exist inside, not outside, so what’s the point of paying attention to animals?

But Tony, 63, who has been incarcerated for 26 years and lives below my cell, has a different perspective. He has been the pod’s resident caretaker of a male and female bird couple living in our pod for the last three years. Their nest is 25 feet off the ground, wedged behind nonfunctional cellphone signal jammers.

Each year, the parents have several cycles of hatchlings through the summer. This year, the first pair of hatchlings didn’t survive. 

“They were too small when they fell out of the nest,” he said.

Sitting on my bunk, I can just see the nest if I lean slightly to the left. 

Tony wears glasses and walks with a bit of a limp because he mostly declines to use his cane. He never receives visitors or makes phone calls. But he makes sure the birds have plenty to eat. Though we rarely get sliced bread from chow hall, Tony always asks several people to bring back some if it’s available. He himself only walks to the chow hall about three times per week, mainly on the days when he visits the infirmary. He told me his knee has no cartilage and his back requires surgery. The half-mile trip to and from meals is too painful, he said. 

On occasions when Tony is able to secure bread, and he sees birds fluttering about, he throws them tiny bread balls every which way. I sometimes have to laugh because it appears as ifhe wants them to walk around and exercise. 

“I help encourage the baby birds to strengthen their wings,” Tony said. “I make them jump up and down like their parents do.”

The sparrows have excellent vision. I typically can’t see the bread ball on the floor, but the birds sense it instantly.

At 4:30 every morning, I see Tony clean up the mess under the nest with supplies he borrows from a hallway worker. He mops up the bird poop using a prison-manufactured version of Pine-Sol, then rinses the mop.

Of course, when there are baby birds there’s a lot more poop than when it’s just the two parents. The sparrows seem to like pooping on the two wall phones. Every now and then a caller gets nailed. 

A few batches ago, a baby bird hadn’t quite learned to fly yet. With onlookers crowded around the tiny fellow, the parents got startled and flew away, leaving the baby on the ground. Tony sat nearby on a table close to the phones. He wouldn’t let anyone touch the baby bird, and he waited there until the parents came and took it back to the nest. He also kept a lookout for Pepper, the resident cat who showed up in the unit and never left. 

“The baby birds are very docile,” Tony said. “I like petting them and feeding them out of my hand. I only let certain people pet them. Not those who will keep the baby or sell it.”

It’s not uncommon here for people to want a bird as a pet. In some cases, a bird could sell for $10. Same with kittens; I recently heard one was going for $50.

It’s incredible to see a neighbor instantly change when they are holding a baby bird. Recently, I walked out of my cell and saw Ricardo, a fellow resident, glowing. He smiled nonstop while feeding the baby bird a bread slice. People told him there was pizza for lunch. “I’m not going to lunch,” he said. “I’m holding on to this baby bird since it’ll probably be permanently gone out the window when I let it go.”

At the end of July, the latest batch of baby birds flew away. Two days prior there was incessant  chirping all day long — and a bunch of poop.

“The baby birds are getting close to leaving,” Tony said. “The mom has to be on the very edge of the nest since it’s too crowded.”

Soon I saw the first baby sparrow come out of the nest. “It’s ready to fly away,” Tony said.  

Tony would not take his eyes off the bird. The babies had $10 bounties on their heads. I knew another neighbor in our pod had been tasked with catching a bird and delivering it to another pod, where he would get paid.

I watched Tony coax the baby bird down. He held it for a while and wouldn’t let anyone touch it. 

“Time for the baby to fly away,” Tony said. He then placed it on the windowsill. The bird’s dad kept flying in and out of the window, until the baby got the message and spread his little wings.

The next day another baby left. The third day the last sparrow flew away.

I can’t bring myself to ask my neighbor if he is sad that his $10 flew out the window.