I just left it open for a minute while I fetched some groceries from the car.
Guess who!
One of our turkeys got mauled
Bubble (on the left) and Baby Turkey (on the right) are our two turkeys. They are our pets, not our Christmas dinner. Anyway, I got home the other day to find Ming had left me a note to say BT was in trouble so I went out and found BT’s feather’s everywhere so I assumed he’d been killed. Bubble and I looked everywhere and (just in case you don’t think birds grieve) I have never seen Bubble so distraught. He kept twitching and looking to the left and right constantly. He couldn’t fluff himself up into his usual showoffy pose and he was frantic but in the end I couldn’t find BT and was about to give up until I saw him. He was staggering around in the adjacent paddock, his back raw with wounds so, as soon as Ming got home from milking, I told him BT needed to be put down because I couldn’t stand to see him suffering. But Ming rallied him and put him into the pen with water and grain where BT ate, drank and walked around. I had a closer look at his wounds and realized that, apart from all of his back feathers being torn out, his wounds were fairly superficial.
Not sure if a fox did this or one of our dogs (who usually leave the turkeys alone).
Long story short, BT is now at the local vet’s and on antibiotics and is recovering well.
And the irony? I will be buying a frozen turkey for Christmas lunch that will cost a hell of a lot less than keeping Baby Turkey alive at the vet’s.
Good old Godfrey
As mentioned before, we have a gander called Godfrey who is like the Godfather and looks after the rest of the gaggle. He is so overprotective of the younger geese that he often bites me, but I adore him. I love the way he has such a proud stance.
He first starting getting bitey with me when we got our first Sebastopol gosling, Pearl, and, not long after, our two Pilgrims, Ola and Seli, and then two more Sebastopols, Diamond and little Woodroffe. When it came time to let these little ones out of their brooder near the Aga, and introduce them to Godfrey, it was fascinating to see him bend his substantial neck down and almost kiss them, making a soft, keening noise. He didn’t respond to the baby ducks or turkeys like this at all – just to the goslings – and from that day onward, they became his property. Except for the fact that he doesn’t like me coming near them, it’s rather lovely. Also, if my nieces or nephews visit, I have to watch him carefully as you can see from this picture taken when they were little.
The gaggle are almost his size now but he is still just as protective and sometimes becomes ferocious. The following is one of my favourite pictures of him. However, it is also the reason I am putting off going out to feed the gang – I am getting sick of him biting me and me having to kick out to defend myself. It ruins the late afternoon ambience somehow and it’s tricky because the rest of the gang surround me lovingly (well, greedily because I have food) while Godfrey tries to amputate both my legs at once.
I am going to try something new in a minute and just focus on him. Wish me luck!
Baby Turkey grows up!
Until yesterday, I didn’t know if Baby Turkey was a male or a female. Now I know. And he most definitely knows!
These turkeys grow up very fast!
Pink and grey galahs
A few posts ago I mentioned there were more wild birds here than ever before. Apart from the fact that there is birdseed and wheat grain everywhere, I think this is mainly to do with the fact that birds attract birds! Two of our white peacocks made friends with some of them.
Here are some pictures to prove that, yes, we now have at least two (maybe six) pink and grey galahs. For those of you who are either birders or photographers, I can’t lay claim to either of these titles yet. In other words, the photos of the beautiful birds are really crappy! You will need your binoculars for the second one!
Unblinking
Some people think that birds don’t blink so I have just done some extensive research (two minutes of googling) to discover that, in fact, they do blink, but only every few minutes or so. As I now have several birding readers, I’m hoping to become more enlightened here.
Look at Phoenix 2’s eye!
Check out Whitey’s eye!
Several years ago, Husband began to seem very grumpy all the time and it wasn’t until he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease that I learned that one of the many symptoms can include the inability to blink. Until I found that out, I just thought he was becoming a bad-tempered old grouch. Unblinking can give the appearance of permanent displeasure or sternness. Here is a sample conversation before I realised any of this:
Me: Why are you always so moody? (shouting)
Husband: I’m not – I’m fine (said with expressionless face)
Me: Are you mad at me or something? (teary)
Husband: Of course not. What’s wrong? Why are you so upset? (said with expressionless face)
Me: It’s just that you always look daggers at me.
Husband: I don’t mean to, Jules, honestly. I’m fine.
Me: So why don’t you show it? Why don’t you smile anymore? (shouting again).
The very day Husband and I had this conversation (luckily Son was at school), Husband happened to have a doctor’s appointment anyway, to check on his diabetes. Since I was already in an argumentative mood, the trip in to the closest town wasn’t pleasant:
Me: Why do you always want me to drive these days? Why can’t you drive yourself? (shouting again)
Husband: I just like your company (said with attempted smile).
Long story short – within a week it was discovered that Husband had Parkinson’s disease and the specialist who our doctor referred us to said that unblinking was a symptom, and so was unsmiling, because the muscles in the face could stop working.
‘My bad’ is an understatement of how I felt when we were told this, and all of the heartache that followed this diagnosis is best left unsaid.
Suffice it to say, however, that I now ‘get’ that the unblinking appearance of birds does not mean that they don’t feel:
love
loss
courage
fear
generosity
greed
peace
conflict
love
Seeing
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!
Wait a second – don’t delete me (yet!)
This is my 70th post and it has nothing to do with birds, not really. It has more to do with belly laughing at myself, which is what I’ve been doing for several minutes. Why?
Well, I was on the phone with a good friend (just before the belly laughing attack) and it was when she said, “Thank you for all the emails,” that I realised she thought that I was doing the email bombardment thing.
So I am using this opportunity to explain to those friends and family who were kind enough to subscribe to my blog, that it is NOT ME sending you these emails; the blog system that I belong to (WordPress) sends them to you every time I write a ‘post’ (for me this entails a mini-article with a picture or two). This means that if I am in a particularly wordy mood, you poor subscribers might get two, sometimes three, emails per day.
Again, IT’S NOT ME. Okay, I am doing the writing, but the emails just happen automatically unless you unsubscribe. Unfortunately, if you are unitiated in the world of blogging (and, remember, I am only newly initiated) you might not know how to unsubscribe in which case my blog posts will continued to crowd your email’s inbox.
I hope this explanation is not going to mean I lose half my audience!
Oh, and because this is a blog that is primarily about birds (okay, so it’s evolved into something a bit more maybe) the picture above is of our two Aracauna hens who are supposed to be laying blue eggs.
We haven’t seen a blue egg yet!
Emu farm
The emu breeder, Kip Venn, who delivered our new Emerys the other day, has given me permission to provide the following link to his website: http://www.emufarm.iinet.net.au/ Here is one of my favourite pictures from this website …
Kip gave me some very good advice and that was to spend as much time as possible with the new emus until they get used to the strangeness of human proximity, so I’ve been doing that and two of the emus will now allow me to pat them if I have a bit of food in my hand. I sit on an old tractor tyre and the biggest emu will run up to me, stare at me as if I am some sort of peculiar object, then take a bit of cabbage out of my hand, but if I say ‘hello’ – even if I say it really softly – he sprints off as if there has been an explosion!
Anyway, they are all settling in well, the only drawback being that during the evenings, nights and early mornings, they are ‘next door’ to the gang and Godfrey keeps poking his substantial beak, bill or whatever it is – I think of it as a ‘nose-in-the-air’ nose – through the fence that separates them and hissing.
Conversely, the Emerys are gentle, shy, unassuming and adorable! And it is comforting to know that when I turn my back, unlike Godfrey, they will not bite me on the bum!
jmgoyder 