Gone bird

A young catbird.

The bird the Complete and Total Loser took in a month ago spent a night outside with great success. The Loser took it in the next two nights because of the rain, and left it out the night after that. It never returned. To be kind, the Loser's few friends have suggested that the creature bonded with its own and has made a break with its human friend, but the Loser knows it is dead.
No animal would give up a safe and reliable source of sound nutrition that suddenly. 
The Loser knew the bird's survival was iffy in the long run and told himself that if it met its end it would at least have had more life—in this case, about a month—than it would have had the Loser not taken it in. 
Still, the creature was a bright spark in the Loser's dull life, his heart felt more elastic, and now its loss has thrown him into a funk.