jmgoyder

wings and things

Jan 13

Where is Zaruma?

by jmgoyder

Peacock 1: Have you guys seen Zaruma? I’m worried about him.

Peahen 1: Who’s Zaruma?

Peacock 2: You know – that duck that Godfrey loathes.

Peahen 2: Oh, the ugly one?

Peacock 1: Come on – he can’t help his looks.

Peahen 1: Last I saw he was still trying to hang out with the gang.                                     

Peacock 3: Can he fly? Maybe he’s in a tree.

Gang: We’re not supposed to have anything to do with you, Zaruma – go away before Godfrey sees you here.

Zaruma: What if I promise never to poop in the pond again?

Gang: Take it up with Godfrey. Now get lost!

Zaruma: I wish I could be a kid again. It was so much easier.

Peahen 1: I found him! Come on darling, come on Zaruma. Don’t you worry about that big bad gander; we’ll look after you schnookums.

Wings

4 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 6

King’s feathers

by jmgoyder

King peacock’s personality has changed due to the loss of all but one of his tail feathers. He seems to have somehow retained this one last symbol of superiority, not arrogantly, but desperately.

Son and I have collected most of his feathers (to sell on ebay and make our fortune), but there are still several here, there and everywhere. It’s like finding treasure.

So now that King can’t do his fantail thing, he has become much shyer and quite needy of attention. He hangs around the back door, waiting for me to come out with bread and lettuce and he seems a bit shocked and disappointed by his reflection in the veranda windows. I read somewhere that when peacocks shed their feathers they feel emasculated and I can see this in King’s eyes because now he doesn’t look very different from the younger peacocks, who are no longer in awe of him.

Lately, rather than strutting around Kingishly, and keeping his distance from the teenagers, King seems to need their company. His wife, Queenie, has lost interest in him and this must be very hurtful. He has even stopped making his trumpet noise, and is very quiet and subdued.

The most surprising thing is that he has abandoned the old dairy where he used to spend most of his time. If you look closely at this photo, you can see him there in the centre.

Of course, within a few months, King will have grown new tail feathers, whereas the teenage peacocks won’t get theirs for another couple of years – so he is still ahead. But I don’t think King particularly cared about his superiority and, even when he had all of his tail feathers, he never seemed arrogant about this – just happy.

When he takes the bread out of my hand now, I reassure him that he just has to wait awhile but he looks at me forlornly and I can see how much he misses doing his fantail dance.

Wings

11 Comments »
Dec 26

The pile of feathers

by jmgoyder

On Christmas Eve evening I went out as usual to put the gang away and, once that was done, I went to sit down at my picnic table close to their yards to wait for the peacocks to ascend into the trees.

But my heart galloped to an abrupt halt when I saw, just beside the picnic table, a pile of feathers – King peacock’s tail feathers – about 20 or so. A feeling of grief overwhelmed me because I assumed that the fox had killed him, so I sat down and sobbed inconsolably until, a few moments later, Son bounded out of the house to see where I was. My sobs were rather loud, so he found me quite easily and proceeded to laugh hysterically when I gasped, “King is dead.”

“Mum, you idiot,” Son said, sitting next to me and putting his arm around my heaving shoulders. “He’s fine – see – he’s right there!” He pointed and, through my tear-engorged eyes I saw King strutting across the lawn towards me, looking a little less regal than usual.

I stopped crying with sorrow and started crying with relief. “King!” I called and he came closer.

“He must be molting, Mum. I just collected all his feathers this afternoon and put them in a pile for you,” Son said gently, still chuckling.

I dried my eyes on my shirt. “Would you mind not calling me an idiot?” I said.

“I’ll consider it,” he said.

Wings

14 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 23

The trumpeting of angels – or not

by jmgoyder

Peacocks make a variety of very loud noises and I mean VERY LOUD. Some say that these are amongst the most annoying noises in the world. I was warned about this by the people who sold us our first peacocks, but it was several weeks before any of them made the slightest sound so the first time I heard it, I got a terrible fright because it sounded like a woman screaming – no, not screaming, SHRIEKING. Okay, so that’s one sound. Another one is this trumpeting sound – quite haunting and, to my ears, pleasant, although when they all do it together I am very glad we don’t have close neighbours because it sounds a bit like an orchestra tuning up – ie. a bit disharmonious!

Anyway, these noises fill the air for much of the day, on and off, but the three of us are so used to it now that we don’t even notice. So it’s fantastic fun to see the expression of alarm on visitors’ faces when the peacocks do the shrieking thing. “What the hell was that?” they exclaim.

It’s probably the squawking noise (see/hear youtube below) that most irritates people because it’s such an angry sound, but we don’t hear that too often thank goodness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_DJNG-lxbk

My favourite of their sounds is this soft click-clicking that issues from their throats when I feed them bread or other treats. It’s almost if they are saying ‘thank you’.

Husband will be elated to come back to this trumpeting of angels (I think!)

Wings

4 Comments »
Dec 18

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

8 Comments »
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