December | 2011 | jmgoyder

The frantic fluttering of wings

by jmgoyder

In the life-death-life-death-life cycle of birds I have now seen it all, had my heart broken then re-put-together, and dealt swiftly with the kind of suffering that is evidenced by the frantic fluttering of wings. As you know, we have a fox problem; in fact this whole district has a fox problem, but I didn’t realise how much of a problem this was until we suffered our first casualties (this was before we lost our first emus).

It was months ago now, back at the beginning of our bird adventure and I will never forget that morning.

It was very early and the sun was just crawling out from behind a cloud when I heard a dreadful chorus of squawking and quacking, so I leapt out of bed and ran out of the house to the back yard and, only metres away, there was a fox with one of our male Indian runner ducks in its jaws. I shrieked and ran towards it and it let the duck go and ran away and, thankfully, the duck survived.

I called all of the birds – and gradually, silently, the chickens who hadn’t been killed came towards me. I have a food bin out the back, so I got some bread and they livened up a bit but, when I did a head count, I only counted six when there should have been 12. And I couldn’t find our two roosters. Then, I realised that the Indian runner I had saved, was all alone; his female mate was gone too.

There were feathers everywhere, but no bodies, and I learned later that foxes (specifically vixens feeding their cubs), bury or hide what they kill for a later food source. But that morning, not knowing what I know now, I sat down on the ground and cried while I fed little bits of bread to the survivors. There was an eerie silence and I looked up into the wattle trees to see that all of the peafowl and guinnea fowl were still there, staring down, scared and quiet.

I stopped crying and called up, “It’s okay, you can come down now; the fox is gone,” and, one by one, they vacated their branches to land softly near me and to share the bread with others.

Wings

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Mirrors, vanity and male birds

by jmgoyder

Today I am going Christmas shopping for Son. Over the last year, Husband and I have organised the renovation of an old shed at the back of our property so that Son can have a place of his own, and it’s nearly finished. So my Christmas list includes the many things Son will need to make his shed into a home of sorts.

Well, guess what the first thing on my list is: a mirror. Do you know why? Because, just like King, Phoenix 2, and many of the other male birds, Son likes nothing better than to look at himself. It doesn’t have to be a mirror of course; it can be a window’s reflection, a pool of water, my sunglasses….

I have found the male bird vanity ‘condition’ absolutely fascinating. King, our biggest peacock, does his ‘thing’ constantly now outside the back veranda because he can see himself in the reflection of the windows. Phoenix 2, our golden pheasant, does the same thing. And there is even this little wild bird (I’m not even sure what it is) who pecks, gently, but passionately, at his reflection in Son’s motorbike’s rear vision mirror every morning, just outside my office. Sometimes he does this for well over an hour!

Their blatant self-love astounds me and seems to be a vanity that belongs solely to the male species – of birds I mean; although Son, despite being human, does seem to have a lot of peacockishness about him.

I guess I will have to find rather a large mirror to accomodate his enormous vanity!

On a more serious note, Husband told me years ago that men had to adore themselves to survive and this was part of being male. I only half understood that at the time, but I kind of ‘get it’ now – kind of!

Wings

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Why birds?

by jmgoyder

Someone said to me today, ‘You’ve obviously always loved birds’ and I had to admit that, no, I have never loved, hated, liked or disliked birds. In fact, I have never even noticed birds (except the occasional bright blue wren), in much the same way that I have never noticed plants, trees, flowers or anything outdoors-ish and I absolutely loathe the idea of gardening. So I guess that’s what you call ambivalence.

Husband has always been the nature-boy and he has, over the last half century, created a beautiful garden of palms, camellias, orange trees, silver birches, maples, flame trees, wattles, cacti, wormwood and the list goes on … (as you can see I’ve been making notes and gradually learning to appreciate the different ‘breeds’.)

As a child and teenager I was very nature-boyish too, especially when we lived in Canada and then in Papua New Guinnea but, once I grew up and became a nurse, and then a university lecturer, I got over all of that (not just the nature thing but the wanting-to-be-a-boy thing).

So I don’t exactly know what triggered this birdiness. I don’t think it was the guinnea fowl; I think it might simply have been Isa (our first hen) who, by the way, is laying multiple eggs now! Initially, I was nervous to pick her up because her wings scared me but now she sits on my lap, lets me stroke her and so do the other chooks, rooster and nearly all of the menagerie!

It has been a bit like entering C.S. Lewis‘s Narnia (my favourite book series of all time, especially when I was a child); the birds have bewitched me in a very, very good way – beautiful!

Husband has been loving the birds and Son is getting there, but for me this is absolute magic!

Oh yes, re gardening – well, now that the gang have vacated the greenhouse, my plan is to plant tomatoes in there. Surely these are easy to grow? I love tomatoes.

Wings

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Hearing

by jmgoyder

My ears seem to be more attuned to sounds lately. I keep hearing birds calling and sometimes I rush out of the house thinking I’ve heard a bird in distress when it’s only the Butcher birds squabbling in the fig trees just outside the back veranda.

Last night, Son was at his friend’s place and, as Husband is still in hospital, I was all alone (well, except for the birds!) and the bliss of this almost overwhelmed me because I love being alone – always have.

But I kept hearing Husband calling me – ‘Jules, Jules?’ and I kept hearing his walking stick tap-tap-tapping on the wall because that’s what he does when he wants us to come and help him get out of bed.

The night before I said to Son, “Do you keep hearing Dad calling you?” He said he did and we laughed about our imaginations being a little overwrought.

But now I can’t hear anything – nothing at all.

Wings

13 Comments »

Mr Photogenic

by jmgoyder

In case you haven’t noticed (ha!) I am very much a ‘beginner’ when it comes to photography, but I now have a new camera and I am trying to do a better job.

So I was sitting with the emus this evening, doing the cabbage-taming thing and trying to take some incredible photos. I was thrilled because, not only were they all taking the cabbage out of my hand and letting me pat their furry backs, but they didn’t seem to mind being photographed.

I was quite surprised that the same emu who was scared of my voice just the other day seemed to love having his photo taken. He got closer and closer to me, and I was just beginning to think, ‘wow, he really loves me now’ when he bit the camera, as you can see below.

It’s okay – I mean, I fell off the tractor tyre I usually sit on, dropped the camera, and scared all of the emus, but when the cabbage in my lap went everywhere, they soon came back. ‘Mr Photogenic’, however, wasn’t the least bit interested in the cabbage and kept looking for the camera which I had to quickly hide in my pocket.

Wings

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A bird love story

by jmgoyder

Please click on the link to see a lovely story!

http://hornbill-hornbill.blogspot.com/2009/11/true-aussie-love-story.html

Wings

4 Comments »

Ouch!

by jmgoyder

Wantok: Wow, Buttons, I’ve never done this before. How do you keep your balance?

Buttons: Just dig your claws in. That’s what I do.

Wantok: Oh, okay.

Button: Is that better?

Wantok: Much better, although he just made an ‘ouch’ noise.

Buttons: Oh don’t worry about that. You probably hurt him a bit. They have really thin skin, these humans.

Wantok: Yeah, this one has an enormous head too. I can’t even see you over there. Wait, I’ll just change my position a bit.

Son: OUCH!

Wantok: Whoops, I think I hurt him again. What should I do? I feel awful.

Buttons: He’ll be all right. Just give him a little kiss. He quite likes that.

Wantok: Oh, okay. Good idea.

Wings

14 Comments »

Cockatoo eats Ab swing

by jmgoyder

The most wonderful thing is happening! Every day, Wantok is eating, mutilating and destroying a little bit more of my Ab swing (you know those exercise machines that are supposed to give you a flat stomach in a few days).

Okay, I bought this Ab swing thing a couple of years ago but it hasn’t worked. Apparently, according to the instructions, you have to use it for it to work and, even though I’ve used it quite a bit in my imagination, I still haven’t actually climbed onto it and done what the flat-stomached young woman in the dvd does.

So the fact that Wantok is destroying it is a bit of a guilty relief. She’s nearly finished with the handles and the foot bits of this contraption (which are rubber) and now she has begun on the steel base. She should have it completely obliterated by New Year’s Eve which will be great because then I won’t have to make that particular resolution again – yeeha!

Oh, Wantok, how I love you! Do you know, she even has Buttons chomping away at the more easily destroyable bits of the Ab swing. They are such a great team!

Wings

10 Comments »

The chickens grow up

by jmgoyder

This is a picture of two of the first ever chickens to be born here. On the right is the mother of one of them, Sussex (named after her breed). Several posts ago I told the story of how Sussex, who raised all three chickens under an old shed, suddenly became very distressed one day because she couldn’t find them. Then, the next day, we discovered that another hen, Malay (again, named after her breed), had ‘adopted’ them. Well, I think it’s pretty obvious now that they each hand a ‘hand’ in the motherhood stakes because one is identical to Sussex and the other two are identical to Malay.

They are feisty little chickens having been brought up entirely by both mothers with no human interference. I wanted to interfere and several people suggested I should put them in a brooder in the house with a heat lamp or they might not survive. Then one friend said, “What do you think chickens did before we domesticated them, hmmm?” Point taken!

Wings

4 Comments »

Seeing

by jmgoyder

Until the birds, I never used to see anything beyond my job as a university lecturer, the Husband and Son, and my own navel (not necessarily in that order!)

Now, I have begun to see in a new way. Here are some pictures that ‘describe’ how an unobservant person like me has had her eyes opened.

Oh, just in case you’re wondering, one of the pictures is of a strange new bird we have recently discovered dancing around the place. I don’t really want to shoo him away but I might have to!