Brad (blue peacock) kisses Angelina (white peahen) for the first time, heavily chaperoned by Angelina’s brother, Malay chook and Brad’s brother.
Brad: Was that okay, Angie, darling?
Angelina: Oh yes! So does this mean we’re married now, even though your tail feathers haven’t grown yet?
Brad: Did you have to say that?
Son and I just got home (it’s nearly 6pm in Western Australia) from our second day of medical appointments in Perth, to find Buttons, the weiro, dead in the toilet. As Buttons has always had plenty of water, he has never ventured into this tiny room at the end of the enclosed veranda before (the door to which is usually shut anyway – oh why did I leave it open today?)
I should have put him in his cage for the day. I should have closed the door to this little bathroom he’s never ventured into. I’m an idiot and absolutely grief-stricken by the loss of this tiniest of all our birds – but a bird with the biggest personality.
This is one of the hardest things about having birds, watching birds and loving birds – the inevitability of loss, because of their vulnerability and unpredictability. I am beginning to wonder how, and why, the incredible (and mutual) joy of the birds has been punctuated by grief over and over again for me, for us.
Yesterday and today, Son and I learned some scary things about his scoliosis surgery on the 14th. The nurse, physiotherapist, doctor, aneasthetist, respiratory specialist, radiologist etc. etc. filled us in on some of the minor details the surgeon hadn’t mentioned. For example, he will need bone from the bone bank, blood from the blood bank, his 74% curve can’t be surgically corrected to equal perfectly straight, the pain will be severe for two or three days, he might have to go into another hospital for rehab., there is a slight risk of paralysis etc. etc. All of this is fine with Son who can’t wait to be straightened but, for me, the fear lurks behind the anticipation of Son being ‘fixed’.
Son just rang Husband in the nursing lodge to tell him about our appointments today, and about Buttons.
I am going outside to put the gang away.
Our four emus are identical in every way. So I guess I was wise in giving them all the same name – Emery – which they all respond to. They are becoming more and more ‘at home’ here and, over the last week, I have been letting them free-range for longer and longer and, so far, they have not wandered too far. Also, it is easier now to get them back into their yard for the night. I have a little camp chair in there so, once they’re in, I usually sit and watch them eat their cabbage and lettuce (the afternoon treat) before leaving them to it.
As you can see below, they are very tame and, even though they like shiny things (I will have to stop wearing my watch out there because it always gets pecked!) they are never aggressive. I adore them.
Oh-oh! They’ve disappeared, so we are now going to a commercial break………..
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Okay, it is now several hours since I began this post. Son and I had arrived home from Perth and immediately let the Emerys out and, for an hour or so, they contented themselves with eating grass outside my office and around the house and then – GONE!
Son (in incredible good humour – not) scouted around the house block on his motorbike without any luck and eventually found them on the road, going east. Long story short: they are back in their yard and I will never, ever leave them unsupervised again!
In an attempt to de-crease Son’s dramatic frown, I reminded him of his toddler days when he, too, would wander off to explore the boundaries and beyond. Unfortunately, my anecdotes didn’t trigger his usual lovely smile although he did try. I’m just glad I didn’t have quadruplets!
I am still gobsmacked by our ‘changelings’. You see, we weren’t home yesterday when the Alpacas, Okami and Uluru, were shorn. So, because we weren’t there to see it happen, it was even more of a ‘before-and-after’ shock.
Many of our birds also seem amazed. Angelina’s hair stood on end when Okami and Uluru approached the food bin to munch out on wheat – and, previous to the shearing, I thought they were a bit fat! I’m about to go and buy some more food for them!
The following photo was taken on the day we purchased the little fellows so how was I supposed to know what was underneath all of that wool???
Oh yeah, we now have several bags of Alpaca wool if anyone is interested! There is enough here to carpet an entire continent – ha!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvdGPD443nE
The song above fits perfectly with the scenario below.
This is the malicious Baby Turkey approaching Emery, one of the sweet, innocent emus. Baby Turkey’s wingdrop move is straight out of the WWE handbook.
And this is the sweet, innocent Emery, singing ‘Can we still be friends’ to the malicious Baby Turkey – a very clever and effective tactic!
On the left is Guinnea (one of our many Guinnea fowl, all named ‘Guinnea’ for the sake of convenience), and on the right is Tapper (one of our two Muscovy ducks). Now, usually these two breeds don’t associate with each other. There’s no animosity; it’s more a matter of not having anything in common.
So I thought it was quite sweet last night to see them perched together on top of one of the yards, sharing the view of the back paddock, with the sunset nuzzling a few clouds away, a gentle breeze whispering its way through the grass, a lullaby of raindrops … WAIT A MINUTE!!!
The back paddock is where that rotten fox lurks. That’s what they’re watching. They must’ve seen him/her. And, because Guinnea and Tapper have the advantage over some of the gang in the sense that they can fly, I now realise that this is actually a photo of sentry duty and has nothing whatsoever to do with a view!
I’ve found the ‘zoom’ function on my new camera!
Husband named our weiro, ‘Buttons’ but Buttons doesn’t seem to be able to wrap his beak around this word, so I have decided to rename him ‘Zoomy’ because he does zoom around the veranda a lot and I think this is an easier word for him to mimic. And it’s appropriate because he doesn’t just fly gently onto my shoulder; he zooms at me, like an arrow, and usually collides BANG with my face, which he likes to nibble (maybe I should rename him ‘Cannibal’).
Aren’t weiros supposed to talk? All Buttons/Zoomy/Cannibal seems to be able to emit is a very LOUD wolf whistle – you know, the kind of whistle that attractive women attract from unattractive men working on top of buildings. Well, not always – sometimes it’s a bit of a vice versa thing.
Anyway Zoomy came to us, hand-reared, tame and wolf-whistley (I was not warned about the latter), so we have had to accept his flirtatiousness. He even kisses me on the lips when I am not expecting it and, as bird kisses are rather sharp, this can be a little disconcerting, and painful. But when I steer his beak away from my face and fling him place him gently back onto my shoulder, Zoomy/Cannibal then attacks my ear.
I think, because I have been preoccupied with the zoom function on my camera, one of Buttons’ new names is a partly a word association side-effect? I just cannot decide which name is the best: Buttons, Zoomy or Cannibal. So far, he is responding to all three names so perhaps I’ll just do that. After all, he is a mixture – ‘Buttons’ is his gentle self; ‘Zoomy’ is his speed-of-light self; and ‘Cannibal’ is his aggressive, face-eating self.
Any suggestions?
I love this zoom thing!
Little Chooks 1 and 2, our two identical Araucana hens, went missing weeks ago and, even though I thought that the fox might have nabbed them, I hoped they were sitting on eggs somewhere.
So, you can imagine my relief when Son told me he’d seen one of them emerge, rather bedraggled, from underneath one of the sheds, the other afternoon. This means that she is definitely sitting on eggs deep under that shed and, hopefully, we’ll soon see some offspring.
I haven’t seen either of the Little Chooks myself, and it isn’t the same shed as the one where Sussex and Malay produced their chicks (see a previous post). With them, we could at least see underneath the shed and watch the progress, leave water and food etc. The shed that Little Chooks have chosen is impenetrable, so I will just have to wait and hope.
Hope can be risky.
jmgoyder 