peafowl | jmgoyder

Hints of harmony

by jmgoyder

I hesitate to speak too soon, but it looks like my patience has paid off and familiarity has bred harmony rather than contempt when it comes to interactions between our dogs and our birds.

This morning we let the dogs out of their yard and kept the gang in theirs (we usually do the opposite). I sat outside and kept watch because even though the geese, ducks and emus were safely in their own yards, all of the other birds were out and about because they can fly. So the peafowl, guinnea fowl, turkeys, chooks and pheasant, were all roaming around freely and seemingly unafraid of the dogs who they usually only see through a fence. I was particularly worried about the chooks but so far so good and I’ve been able to come inside.

Here is Jack, the Irish Terrier, with the Bubbles and Baby Turkey. Now Jack, who is less than a year old, has never exhibited any ferocious hunting tendencies anyway, but he does like to chase things. In this sense, he and Baby Turkey have a lot in common so you could say they have both met their match and the chasing has stopped.

Interestingly, Doc and Blaze (our father and son miniature dachschunds) are so busy fighting each other at the moment that neither has attempted to hunt down any of the birds. I’m not sure what is going on with those two but lately they never stop arguing and last night Doc gave Blaze a nasty bite on the ear when Son was feeding them. Doc is very jealous when it comes to our attention so poor Blaze has to constantly defer to his father and stand back.

Another harmony challenge has been the introduction of a new gander to the gang. He was delivered to us by a neighbour the other day because he had lost his mate and was very lonely. The poor guy is quite scared of Godfrey’s gang and yesterday, when Son and I got back from Perth, we found him all alone by the gate and had to ‘herd’ him back to the gang and put them all in the same pen. We are calling him Leroy and hoping that with enough time in the yard with the others, he will eventually make a friend and be okay. Son says it reminds him of being ‘the new kid’ at school. The following photo is not a good one but it does show this new kid’s challenge. Leroy is on the right, Seli is on the left and Godfrey is in the background (as always!) Sometimes redeye isn’t a bad effect!

In a couple of hours I pick Husband up for the weekend so I better go and hose down the area outside the back door which all our birds seem to think is the toilet – arghh!

Animal Wings

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Blue or white?

by jmgoyder

As most of you know, we have a lot of peafowl. Most of them are blue but we also have the three white ones. Many posts ago, I wrote about ‘Angelina’ (white peahen) and ‘Brad’ (blue peacock) and their budding romance. Since then, their relationship has had a few ups and downs (because all of the peacocks love Angie and all of the peahens love Brad), however they are still very much together.

I hadn’t given a thought to what their offspring might look like until my friend/niece, Jane, sent me this picture from flickr….

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chi-liu/with/123909406/

So, the future looks very interesting indeed!

Wings

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The kiss (with captions!)

by jmgoyder

This morning I was sitting on the back doorstep feeding bits of bread to the peafowl. When I ran out of bread, I was lucky enough to witness and photograph this lovely scene.

Teenage peacock (left): What perfume are you wearing?

Teenage peahen: I don’t wear perfume – I’m a bird, silly!

Teenage peacock: Well, you smell lovely!

Teenage peahen: Thanks. Are you okay? You are acting a bit weird.

Teenage peacock: I like your shoes too.

Teenage peahen: Oh, will you just stop these ridiculous compliments and kiss me?

Teenage peacock: I thought you’d never ask!

Once again, romance is born!

Wings

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The kiss

by jmgoyder

Wings

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Tactile defensive

by jmgoyder

Long ago, when I was a nurse, I worked for several years at a hostel for multi-handicapped people, in Perth, Western Australia. Even though this job was initially extremely confronting due to the severity of the various disabilities suffered by the residents in this hostel, I loved working there. However, one of the most challenging situations was caring for those people who were ‘tactile defensive’, who didn’t like to be touched. Zac was one of those people. He was eight years old, blind, deaf, could only walk with assistance and (supposedly) ‘mentally retarded’. He spend most of the day rocking, groaning, gnawing his hands and headbanging and, yes, he hated to be touched. Feeding, bathing, dressing him, putting his protective helmet on and bandaging his hands, was not a job for the faint-hearted because he would lash out and scream despite our gentleness with him. I don’t think I have ever come across a person or situation more heartbreaking. His family never visited because I think they just found it too hard.

The description, ‘tactile defensive’ has never left me and, in terms of the birds, it is the peafowl who most remind me of Zac because, even though they are not disabled, they hate to be touched. I can pat all of ‘the gang’ (the chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys) but not the peacocks and peahens. The weird thing is that the peafowl will happily touch me – peck at my hands for bread, peck at my knees for bread, peck at my toes for bread – but if I reach out to pat them, they let out little yelps and back away.

I have a healthy respect for those who are ‘tactile defensive’, so when Queenie (our oldest female) stepped on my foot as I was distributing bread this morning, I patted her back without thinking and she let me! Mind you, it was only one quick pat and she stood back and looked at me quizzically, as if we had both entered a parallel universe!

Once, Zac, quieter than usual, reached out and touched my hand with his wounded fist. As usual, the bandages had come off. I held his bruised and bloodied hand in mine for around five seconds and he stopped rocking and raised his face to ‘look’ at me with his blind eyes. Every time I am able to pat a peacock, I will think of that moment with Zac.

Wings

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‘blogetiquette’

by jmgoyder

Blogging about blogging is, yes, a little strange perhaps, however, as a relative newcomer to this form of communication and writing, I have decided to coin the term ‘blogetiquette’ because I think it needs to be one word – a neologism if you like! (I’m hoping that the annual dictionary re-writers will pick this up and make me famous!)

So, the blogetiquette rules I’ve decided on for myself include:

have respect for the parents of the blog (in my case, wordpress.com)
only subscribe to other blogs if you are genuinely interested (not because you want them to subscribe to yours)
read all of the posts written by your fellow bloggers before publishing your own
reply, or at least, acknowledge all comments made to you on your blog – again, before you publish your own
get permission before you reblog someone else’s post (this is only because reblogging has recently become fraught)
limit yourself to less than 5 posts per day or you might annoy people with the email build-up (the most I do is 4 and that’s not often because I’ve had some negative feedback about overposting!)
be grateful for any awards or nominations you receive (whether you accept them or not)
respect your readers and subscribers
never hit the ‘like’ button unless you really do like the post
always be honest in your own posts
never criticise other people’s posts

I’m sure I could think of more but those are the ones I usually adhere to now that I have made the transition from novice to fledgling.

Speaking of fledglings, these two peacocks have nearly grown their ‘King’ feathers …

… whereas poor old King is still mourning the loss of his own (don’t worry, he’ll grow them back soon!)

Of all the birds who live here, it is the peacocks and peahens who have the best etiquette skills in terms of their respect for each other and for us too. When they take bread from my hand, instead of nearly swallowing my arm (as the geese do), they make a soft clicky noise as if they are saying ‘thank you’.

They have birdetiquette down to a much finer art than we will ever get blogetiquette!

If you have any blogetiquette tips, please share them….

Politely yours

Julie

Animal Family Wings

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Eggs

by jmgoyder

Angelina: What are these things?

Phoenix 1: I’m not sure, but they look rather delicious.

Queenie: They’re chicken eggs, you morons. Well, I think they are … they dropped out of the woman’s bag of cabbage. Don’t touch them – they could be from the shop!