Wings | jmgoyder

‘Alone again, naturally’

by jmgoyder

The title of this post derives from the Gilbert O’Sullivan song of the 1960s and reminds me that, no matter how many people surround us, we are, fundamentally, alone. For some this is terrifying; for others (like me!) it is refreshing; for all of us, it is a reality. We are alone in the birth canal and in the death canal and that is a fact.

I have noticed, over the last several months, that if a bird has been injured, all of the other birds will leave it alone. There seems to be this instinctive compulsion in birds, and perhaps in many other animals, to get as far away as possible from the suffering or dying of their breed. Actually, it’s possibly more of a revulsion or a fear thing – I’m not sure.

We humans, on the other hand, sometimes feel as if we are supposed to gather around the injured or stricken of our breed, to empathize and commiserate, when what we really want to do is fly away. But we are good at pretending. Birds, on the other hand, don’t pretend, and I admire this unwitting honesty, this commonsense ….

…. this conundrum!

This chook is gone now and I will miss her so much.

Uncategorized Wings

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Baby emus by ‘dou dou’ and the new Emerys

by jmgoyder

‘Dou dou’ had made me some baby emus! Check them out at:

http://doudoubirds.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/baby-emus/

Anyone would think ‘dou dou’ had real emus right there in front of her because these look so much like our first Emerys it’s uncanny! Our second Emerys are much bigger of course, so I am thrilled to be getting these little ones because they will remind me – not in a sad way, but a happy way – of Emerys 1, 2 and 3.

Our new Emerys are becoming restless in their enclosure. They are so tame now that they run up to me when I arrive with cabbage so I am hoping to be able to let them out soon so that they can run more freely (emus love to run). My dilemma is that they might run into the back paddock where the fox lurks.

My plan is to let them out, two by two, in a Noah’s Arkish way, in the hope that they will do their sprinting within the five acres of our house block. I think that, if I stay outside and watch out for them, and have a lot of cabbage on hand, they will adjust to this new freedom and come to me if I call but it’s still going to be risky and I’m quite nervous, so wish me luck!

Wings

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Leftovers

by jmgoyder

What I mean by ‘leftovers’ here consists of the things I have forgotten to mention in previous posts – for example:

1. Many of the photos I now use, to accompany my little stories, were taken randomly before I even knew what a blog was.

2. None of the photos I’ve taken since I started this blog have been ‘staged’; even the Ouch post was a spontaneous series of photos.

3. I am trying to take better photos with my new camera but I don’t seem to have the visual instinct required – will keep trying!

4. Weiros grind their teeth/beaks and I mean GRIND! Buttons is on my shoulder doing it now and it’s actually quite noisy and annoying!

5. Argh – Wantok is doing it now – that GRINDING thing! She does it quite loudly too.

6. I think Buttons might be a boy because apparently her/his big, round, orange cheeks indicate maleness and might explain why he is so enamoured of me (his beak under my chin right now, left eye curved up to meet mine, lots of snuggling).

7. Despite Son’s reluctance to embrace the ‘bird thing’, as he calls it, he and Wantok are so infatuated with each other that I feel a bit left out!

8. I am meticulous about grammar so sometimes I go back and edit past posts for posterity. I’m not sure if this is normal, but who cares. On the other hand, does anyone else do this?

9. WordPress is incredible in many ways but there are definitely a few glitches and I seem to keep falling into ALL of them!

10. Even though I am not lonely, or isolated, it is great to be meeting other bloggers who are wiser than I am.

11. This 11 is just to break up 10’s domination and just to say that, even though I said at the outset that there would be a photo with every post, it’s not always possible.

12. Husband comes home from hospital on Friday – yeeha!

Wings

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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

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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.