jmgoyder

wings and things

Jan 25

Imprinting

by jmgoyder

I find the phenomenon of imprinting absolutely fascinating and it was one of the things that got me interested in acquiring some geese in the first place. Apparently, birds imprint on humans and other species more readily than any other kind of animal, with geese being the most ‘imprintable’.

Basically, imprinting occurs when the newborn gosling knows itself to be of the same species as the first creature it encounters. Obviously, this is usually the mother goose but if the newborn is adopted by a human soon after hatching, or else is found abandoned, it will attach itself to the adopter with incredible tenacity. The article below describes imprinting in more detail.

http://www.thegoosesmother.com/id6.html

When I first heard about imprinting and geese, I desperately wanted to do it (a lonely moment of madness perhaps?) and, yes, it certainly did happen with all of the goslings, even when we purchased them at a week old. For example, Pearl, Woodroffe and Diamond (our Sebastopol goslings), and Ola and Seli (our Pilgrim goslings) were, from the very beginning, very pattable, pick-up-able and needy of my presence in their lives.

They’re a little big now to pick up but they still follow me everywhere. The imprinting thing didn’t happen with Godfrey, the godfather of gandersom, because we got him at two years of age. He only follows me when he wants to get a bite out of my leg!

I love it!

 

Wings

11 Comments »
Jan 19

Birdplay

by jmgoyder

I love watching the birds at play. Even though they spend most of their time pecking around for food – grass, grubs and so on, each breed has its own version of fun:

The guinnea fowl love to dig themselves into any grassless patches and roll around in the dirt. They have also formed a choir and their performances are frequent (about once every hour or so). Their music is a bit of an acquired taste which visitors often refer to as ‘noise’ but we are used to its strange echoes.

The peacocks, of course, love to dance the ‘fantail’. Now, even though it’s only the males who do this, the females find it enormously entertaining (occasionally!) They also play a game called ‘scare-the-hell-out-of-Julie’ which consists of blood-curdling screams which never fail to stop me in my tracks, as they are so piercing.

The chooks love to play hide and seek in amongst the bits and pieces of farm debris. The hens are particularly good at hiding which is probably because they don’t like the roosters’ idea of play which I think is better left undescribed here.

The turkeys love a game called ‘peck-the-duck-until-it-wakes-up’. Even though the following picture is of one of the Bubbles (turkey) and Tapper (duck) when they were young, they still play this game with varying degrees of success.

The golden pheasants used to play a war game that turned out to be not a game at all but a war, with the loser banished to an adjacent property and the winner remaining here, victorious and splendid. And lonely. War games are no longer encouraged here.

The Indian runner ducks love to run around, pretending to be fast and, yes, before they met the emus, they thought they were fast. Unfortunately for the Indian runners, most of the timed races have been won by the Emerys, but the ducks are very dignified losers. The Emerys do concede, however, that they have the distinct advantage of loooooooooooooonger legs!

The best game of all here is waterplay and, since the following photo was taken, we have added a pond so that it isn’t just Godfrey who gets to play.

Oh, I nearly forgot – Buttons, the weiro, likes to boogie on my shoulder. He seems to be able to turn his head all the way around, then does this nodding thing really fast, then he shakes himself, then the whole dance move repeats itself. Since he is on my shoulder more than he is off my shoulder lately, this means that I am constantly covered in a sprinkling of tiny feathers that look like dandruff, as well as, you know, weiro waste (the excitement of the boogie seems to affect his little bowel – oh well!)

The following youtube of a crow snowboarding is accompanied by a rather serious little article about whether birds like to play in the same way humans do. I don’t think it matters.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/thoughtful-animal/2012/01/16/snowboarding-crows-the-plot-thickens/

Wings

12 Comments »
Jan 12

The waterbabies!

by jmgoyder

Emu 1: So this is her idea of a pond is it?

Emu 2: Stop complaining – apparently we need to talk to that Godfrey guy, you know, the big gander. Oh, this chopped cabbage is like heaven; she really does that well.

Pearl: Mr God, sir, those emus want to talk to you.

Godfrey: What now? Can’t you see I’m busy? This water is filthy!

Seli: Sorry, sir, but I think they want to form a working party to sort out the pond situation.

Godfrey: This is getting ridiculous. Since when do emus like to swim? Woody, go and tell them that they may use the kiddy pool for the time being, but no splashing, no pooping and one at a time only.

Woodroffe: Yes sir.

Godfrey: Stop swanning about, gang! This is serious.

Emu 1 to other emus: C’mon, Emerys – this is lovely!


Emu 2: The Godfather said only one at a time.

Emu 1: Okay, just give me a moment. Oh, wow!

Godfrey (honking from a slight distance): Tomorrow’s meeting will commence at 6am sharp. We will form a working party consisting of three geese, one duck, one turkey and one – I repeat, one – emu. In the meantime the emus may continue to use the kiddy pool but not the pond. Agenda items:

  • bigger ponds
  • more ponds
  • cleaner ponds
  • separate ponds for different species

Phoenix 2: Have you guys heard about this meeting?

Peacock: Don’t worry about it, Goldilocks, it’s just a poultry thing.

Phoenix 2: Oh.

Whitey: You know little Tapper, the duck? He told me that the Godfather wants to have regular meetings from now on. Can you believe it?

Phoenix 2: But why?

Whitey: Well, Tapper thinks it might be all Zaruma’s fault because he keeps secretly pooping in the pond.

Bubble: Godfrey said he only wants one turkey in the working party, so do you want to do it? It would be a good experience for you.

New turkey: I would be honoured.

Bubble: Good boy.

New turkey: I’ve only been here a little while but I really love it.

Bubble: Mmmm.

New turkey: There’s never a dull moment!

Pearl: Woody, would you mind representing me at the meeting today? I have a headache.

Woodroffe: Of course, Pearly, you’re my favourite sister in the world.

Pearl: You do have Diamond.

Woodroffe: Diamond’s a boy – remember? So she’s my brother.

Pearl: Oh, my head is pounding.

Ola: Woody, where’s the meeting?

Woodroffe: The greenhouse.

Ola: Is the woman coming?

Woodroffe: Hell, no – Godfrey would never allow that!

Ola: Well, I think she should be involved.

Woodroffe: I agree but I’m not going to bring it up.

Ola: In that case, I will. I adore her.

Woodroffe: I do too, but please don’t tell Godfrey.

Zaruma: Will you guys shut up. Let’s get this over with.

Ola (whispering to Woody): Little does Zaruma know he’s in big trouble.

Woodroffe: Well it’s his fault for pooping in the pond all the time.

Emu 1: So much fuss about nothing!

Emu 2: I dare you to get into the kiddy pool while they’re in the meeting.

Emu 1: You are on!

Emu 2: No, no – I was just joking. It’s too risky!

Emu 1: I’ll show you how I dunk my head in the water – it’s amazing!

Wings

6 Comments »
Jan 11

Down the rabbit hole

by jmgoyder

Yesterday, in the early evening after all the birds were safely in their yards, I decided to take some photos of the rabbits. Oh yes, haven’t I mentioned them before? We have hundreds of rabbits – well, perhaps not quite hundreds, but lots and lots – so many, in fact, that a friend from Perth asked if I was breeding them. No, I am not breeding them; they are doing that extraordinarily well all by themselves.

In other words, we have a rabbit plague.

They are everywhere! At any time of the day or evening, I can look through any window, or go outside, and I will see not just one or two rabbits, but entire families scampering around, here there and everywhere, in amongst the peacocks and guinneas and geese and ducks and chickens and turkeys. The scene resembles something rather heavenly except it is not heavenly because those rabbits are digging up the foundations of every building on the farm – that is five sheds and this house! I keep expecting the house to suddenly tip over. After all, it’s a very old house.

So last evening I sat outside, camera ready and waited. And waited. And waited. And I didn’t see one rabbit – not even a bunny! It was as if, like Alice in Wonderland, I had fallen down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world – this one devoid of rabbits. I wish.

Anyway, I thought I better take a picture of something, so I took one of the feathers on the lawn. In a previous post I mentioned that, with all the birds molting, it looks a bit like it has been snowing. Then I took a picture of King peacock’s final feather. As I said in another previous post he’s been hanging onto that last symbol of his former glory for ages. Now, having shed that final tail feather he will have to wait several months for them to all grow back. Poor guy seems a bit lost now.

I was still waiting for a rabbit or two to appear so I took another couple of photos of feathers that had blown into a blossom tree. I say a blossom tree because I’ve forgotten what kind of tree this is and Husband isn’t here to enlighten me (I’m ashamed to say that after nearly 20 years of marriage and living here, I still don’t know what many of these trees and flowers are!)

Actually, I’m not comfortable with the little white lie I just told about the feathers in the tree. They were in the tree earlier in the day but had blown onto the ground again, so I put them back in the tree to take the photos. Is that false photography? Interesting concept!

I am not, however, white-lying about the rabbits. The weird thing is that I haven’t seen any today either, so far.

Perhaps I’ve magicked them away somehow. On the other hand, the house does feel a little tilted today!

Or maybe I’m just stuck inside a ‘Julie in Wonderland’ rabbit hole.

When I go in to see Husband today, I will ask him what the blossom tree is called. He will know.

Animal Uncategorized Wings

12 Comments »
Jan 9

The ‘new’ emus

by jmgoyder

We have now had the new Emerys (the name I call our emus) for nearly a month, so three days ago, I let them out of their yard for the first time. They were hesitant that day and just hung around outside their yard, but on the second day, they ventured further into the paddocks they are looking longingly at in the above picture. I was hoping they would stick to the five acres around our house but, as Son pointed out rather sternly, they are wild birds at heart.

Each day it has been a challenge to round them back into their yard. They do come when I call out “Emerys” but they take their time and I have to have a lot of cabbage to tempt them. They love frolicking in water so now what I do is to turn the hose on into their yard and create a big puddle and this also lures them in but it takes a lot of patience.

Unfortunately we have had two casualties. The first was on the day of arrival (I couldn’t write about it at the time); one of the six emus, once released into the yard, could not stand up. It kept trying and falling over and this went on for a couple of hours while the emu farmer was still here. We tried everything but eventually the farmer said that once this happened there was no hope, so he had to put the emu out of its misery. This was done very quickly and humanely, but I was devastated. Then, a week ago, the same thing happened to one of the others and Son had to do the deed as the emu was extremely distressed and seemed to be in terrible pain and kept cheeping. This was the same day Wantok flew away so it was a pretty dreadful day. The picture below shows one of the emus sitting down (this one is perfectly well) but this is what the two deceased emus did when they got sick; each of them would get to a sitting position, then flop to one side or the other, legs flailing, then get to a sitting position again and so on. There doesn’t appear to be any explanation.

On a more positive note, the remaining four emus are thriving and loving their hours of freedom. They are much bigger than our first Emerys so I think they might be safe from that fox, but I can’t be sure, so I spend a lot of time following them around which I thoroughly enjoy. It’s hilarious to watch them run in their zig-zagging way. They often bump into the peacocks and geese which frightens the hell out of both parties. Strangely, the only one they don’t seem afraid of is Godfrey, the gander, who hisses and honks at them to which they reply with a surprisingly deep grunt, almost like a bark and this shuts him up!

Ha!

Wings

10 Comments »
Jan 1

Strategies for dealing with aggressive birds

by jmgoyder

Happy new year everyone. One of the first things on my list of things-to-do-in-2012 is to improve these strategies.

The loaf of bread strategy:

Okay, you already know about Godfrey, the Godfather of ganderdom. Now, don’t get me wrong; I adore Godfrey, but it’s unrequited, so now I honk back at him when I am trying to pat MY geese, not HIS geese, and today I slapped him in the head with a loaf of bread after he bit me on the bum again. This was quite effective except that Godfrey took the whole loaf of bread and ran away, with the gang following. So much for their loyalty. I will need to perfect this strategy before I patent it. Oh, and don’t be fooled by the gentleness of this picture; it was taken months ago, before Godfrey became the Godfather.

The leg-shaking strategy:

Tina Turner is the Araucana rooster who seemed like a hen to begin with. Okay, so I got that wrong. Well, Tina has recently developed an antipathy towards me which he demonstrates by flying at my legs and latching on with his substantial claws. This is very painful, especially if you are wearing shorts. Now it has been suggested to me that his behaviour might be an expression of adoration but don’t think so. Anyway, this is how to do the leg-shaking thing. You just walk slowly towards the rooster, lifting one leg at a time and shaking it. If the rooster tries to get behind you and trick you, just keep doing the leg-shaking. Sometimes this means that you will accidentally kick the rooster but if that happens don’t worry as the rooster will recover. Incidentally, this is also a great leg-toning exercise.

I’ve used the following photo of Tina on this blog before but I haven’t been able to take another one because it’s hard to take a photo while you are leg-shaking.

The screech strategy:

This one is very good for Willy wagtails who are nesting in washhouses on old farms. In a previous post I mentioned how difficult it is for me to do the washing whilst being dive-bombed by screeching Willy wagtails. So now what I do is I run, screeching loudly, into the washhouse and continue screeching until I have put the load of washing on. I’ve learned that I have to screech louder than they screech in order for the strategy to work. What happens is that they will vacate the washhouse for approximately two minutes, so obviously this strategy needs a bit of tweaking.

This photo is courtesy of Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Willie_wagtail_in_nest.jpg

So there you have it: three very effective strategies for dealing with aggressive birds. I realise these strategies need refining, so any suggestions are welcome!

Wings

10 Comments »
Dec 25

Not for Christmas lunch!

by jmgoyder

Ever since we began accumulating birds, specifically poultry, friends and family have joked about us having a very handy source of food. Recently, one friend even had the affrontery to suggest that they would all be suitable for Christmas lunch, so I had to become rather stern with her.

“None of these birds are food,” I said, picking Zaruma (a duck) up and stroking his substantial chest. We were sitting opposite each other, outside at one of the picnic tables. “They’re our friends.”

As if to confirm this, one of the Bubbles (a turkey) flew up onto the table and nuzzled me.

“Oh,” she said, “I just thought with so many….”

I noticed that Godfrey (a gander) was approaching her from behind, poised to bite her bum. After all she was sitting where I usually sit and that’s where he sometimes catches me off guard.

I couldn’t help thinking how a little nip from Godfrey might teach my friend a lesson, after her tactless remark. She didn’t hear his warning hiss because we were surrounded by chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys and peacocks, all squawking and squabbling for bread, lettuce, cabbage and my attention.

“Anyway,” I said to her pointedly, as Godfrey got closer. “They’re all such gentle creatures.” And, whammo, right on cue, Godfrey lunged in and bit her on her subtantial posterior. Well, she leapt up with a shriek of horror, whirled around then shrieked even louder to see Godfrey’s hissing, angry face.

“Why didn’t you warn me?” she yelled, backing away from Godfrey, terrified.

“My goodness, I didn’t see that coming!” I said, feigning innocence. I was trying really hard to keep a straight face but I just couldn’t and broke into laughter. “I guess it’s just that he doesn’t particularly like hearing about the idea of being eaten.”

Unfortunately, my friend and I are no longer quite as close as we used to be.

Wings

8 Comments »
Dec 23

Do birds smile?

by jmgoyder

Do birds have facial expressions? I’m not sure, although many bird photographers (some of whom are my favourite bloggers), capture pictures of birds looking scared or angry or surprised – even happy – but I think might be skilled photography, not the bird actually shifting its features around to express any emotion.

Again, I’m not sure.

For me, it’s this lack of facial expression that makes it difficult to ‘read’ birds. Here are some examples:

Godfrey (the gander who likes to bite me) has the same arrogant expression on his face, regardless of whether he is defending his ‘brood’, tripping over his big feet or chasing me.

The Bubbles (our turkeys) have permanently ferocious expressions even when they are giving me their equivalent of a hug, which is sort of like wing-in-your-face+beak-in-your-neck gesture.

Zaruma and Tapper (the Muscovy ducks) always look innocent and befuddled, despite their canniness.

All of the geese look sweet and needy, even when they are fighting over food.

The emus look inquisitive and intellectual, even though one of them can’t tell the difference between a camera and a cabbage.

King and the rest of the peacocks always look a tiny bit disgruntled even though they are obviously ecstatically happy here.

Okay, so many of these bird expressions seem to contradict the reality of the situation, and I have started to take a better ‘look’ at their eyes because I think this may be the key to ‘reading’ them better.

Husband’s Parkinson’s has affected the muscles in his face, so much so that he is unable to smile properly, even when he’s happy, like now – happy to be home. I never realised, until today, how much, how much, how much I miss his huge, boisterous smile.

But the birds have taught me this: smiling isn’t everything!

Wings

8 Comments »
Dec 2

Sebastopol sarcasm

by jmgoyder

Diamond: Hey, Woody, I think I found a wing. Can we Sebastopols fly?

Woodroffe: No, we can’t fly and what the hell are you doing now, Di? Oh, I can’t look – you are so embarrassing.

Diamond: I think I found my genitals and I might not be a girl after all.

Woodroffe: How thrilling. So what would you like me to call you now – Dick?

Dick: Why do you always have to be so sarcastic, Woody?

Wings

8 Comments »
Nov 30

The patter of little feet

by jmgoyder

This picture was taken a few weeks ago and I’m very glad I took a few shots like this because all four of these goslings are now HUGE! I have never known anything to grow as fast as a goose (well, except maybe a miniature pig – see previous posts.)

The first time I heard the sound I was outside the front of the house, getting firewood. I thought it was a roll of thunder but when I looked up, the sky was clear, so I realised it must be Son on his drums.

That is until they came around the corner – six geese at full speed, their huge webbed feet slapping the ground into a primeval beat. When they spotted me, their stampede became more frenzied until they reached me and I told them I’d run out of lettuce.

Disappointed, they waddled quietly away.

Note: ‘the patter of little feet’ quote comes from the following poem:

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Children’s Hour“

Between the dark and the daylight,  When the night is beginning to lower,   Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,   That is known as the Children’s Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me   The patter of little feet,   The sound of a door that is opened,   And voices soft and sweet.

http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/longfellow/thechildren.shtml

Enhanced by Zemanta

Wings

15 Comments »
«Older Entries
Newer Entries »
Blog at WordPress.com.