Friday, November 27, 2009

Bats, Birds and the Golden 'Keet

Back from the gym, that delicious lethargy from muscles well used. Outside a white horse stark against the dark green shadowed grasses. But it's hot and going to get hotter. 36 the radio man says. Was thinking on the drive home how I would like to build an enclosed bird verandah on the north side of the house. The birds are on the western side and although shaded by torreliana trees it is still far too hot. The aviary birds have the benefit of the huge shady poinciana tree and are cooler there than we are in our unair-conditioned house.
The bats in the colony on the edge of town were already waving their leathery wings in an effort to cool off. They look like hundreds of black eggplants hanging from the branches. Spoke to one of the bat carers this week. Dozens die from the heat, he said. Mums leave their babies behind when they venture off to feed at dusk. Many don't return and the babies, unprotected, die. The old age home which borders the colony won't let carers in to rescue the babies. I don't see how they can deny them as the creek and creek edge is crown land. Or so I thought. It seems odd that bats which are native to Australia have so much trouble coping with the heat. But imagine being black, hanging in full sun (the trees provide very little shade as although they are tall, their leaves are sparse) with your head wrapped inside your black leather cloak.
Dimitri and I were doing really well. He was staying put when I'd walk onto the verandah and hardly moving when I offered him millet. Then disaster. When I gave him a sunflower seed he lost his balance and fell, sliding off the wide metal hooks which anchor the wood bird ladder to the tree perch. Then later, he fell off the end of the table branch when it tipped under his weight. My fault. I'd done the big clean up and untied the end so I could properly clean the table. I thought it was heavy enough on the large end not to budge under his weight. I was wrong. He slid right off. Thankfully both times he was unhurt. But he was unnerved and frightened and as I was present on both occasions I was linked with 'bad things'. He was very edgy this morning and wanted nothing to do with me. I accept that and realise we've just taken a few steps backward. We'll be fine. I gave him some millet when I got home and he was less anxious than he was earlier. R has replaced the metal hooks with sturdy wood and I've retied the branch. I want no more accidents!
I'm saying 'Millet' in a happy clear voice whenever I feed him now. Just finished reading Alex and Me, Dr. Irene Pepperburg's book on her 30 years with Alex, the famous grey parrot. Although I won't be training Dimitri to speak with the rival/model method used in the book, there's no reason I can't label everything I offer him in the hopes that one day he may make the connection. I've never been keen that any of my birds should talk. Caruso, the S. C. Cockatoo, spoke a few words but it was more a parroting of what was said to him. I'm not sure he knew what the words meant - yet when I ask Marvin, the galah, to kiss me, he does. He obviously makes the connection between the words and the action required.
Released Amos, the juvenile galah, this morning. He still favours that leg a little but he can walk, perch and, boy, can he fly. I couldn't see the advantage in keeping him any longer. If he can walk on the ground to feed (he can), and perch (on the overhead wire no less) and fly (like an expert) than he's got as good a chance as any juvenile galah - which isn't all that great. Only one out of ten make it through their first year. Terrible odds. I've put out seed and water on top of his aviary. Troppo, another released galah, stays here alot, even spending the odd night inside the aviary with the others (I think he regards it as a little holiday; food laid on and protection from predators so he doesn't have to stay hypervigilant all the time) . Maybe he will buddy up with Amos. A galah on his own doesn't have near the protection as a galah in a flock with many eyes scouring the skies for predators.
Saw something extraordinary a couple of days ago. We've had probably 70 rainbow lorikeets hanging around in the mornings interspersed with a couple of dozen scaly breasted. I was walking down the driveway when I glanced up at a commotion in the silky oak above me. There were half a dozen screaming rainbows and in their midst was a yellow one. Bright daffodil yellow from head to tail with a head the colour of the inside of a ripe guava. By the time I'd attracted R's attention it had flown. Saw it again the next day. Saw the back of it was also yellow but with a hint of khaki green. I know those people who can't leave things well enough alone have to breed colour mutations to improve on nature so the bird might be an escaped pet or aviary bird. Or it might just be a natural mutation. Unfortunately with colouring like that it is a marked bird. The dark green backs of rainbows and scaly-breasted make them almost invisible from the air. Not so a bright yellow bird. At least he's a strong flier. He's the Golden 'Keet, related in name to the elusive Golden Fleece.
We have a white throated gerygone nesting in the potted umbrella tree right next to our front door. She and her husband spent two weeks building the nest. Well, she built it and he encouraged her with song. She is all of two inches long with a white throat, yellow breast and grey brown back. We were amazed that with all our comings and going and the whippets living permanently on the deck that she would chose that as a nest site. Perhaps our proximity was part of the plan for no hawk or cuckoo (which lay eggs in their nest) would dare an assault. Yet now that she's laid her eggs and is nesting she's become quite flighty and leaves the nest when we step onto the deck. R has put up a sign, 'Bird Nesting, Go Around' with arrows to deter visitors from coming up the steps. I hope she hatches and raises them successfully.

Friday, November 13, 2009

writing and a strange coincidence...and Dimitri

Where to start. I've been writing, not much but enough to get going again. My secret? I joined a writers online group. Simple really. Reading all these posts from aspiring (and published) writers and it occurs to me sitting on my great acre complaining does not get the book written. Then too, today there were a couple of posts, sample writings from other group-ies, and well, they were bloody awful. Not that I'm good, even okay, but my fiction isn't abysmal. Really. I do believe in it and myself enough to say that. It is bad form to compare oneself with others. I'm hot, you're not. Not good I know but I admit I'm shallow enough to be encouraged by other's sad attempts.
Good writing is something I want to emulate. I read it and enjoy it then re-read it trying to figure out how they did it (and made it look so effortless). Don't re-read bad writing, that would be fruitless torture, like going to the dentist to fill in a spare hour. But bad writing serves a purpose too. Not to say bad writers don't improve. This second book of mine is better than the first. The fifth book should be better than this one.
Here's an eerie coincidence. Several xmases ago I was given a notebook with a hand tooled leather cover as a place to write ideas in. I used it once. When I was looking for something the other day to jot something down in I found it again. The only thing I had written in it was an idea about a woman who jumps from a bridge, a man who grabs her skirt and manages to hang on and a third man who assists the first man in pulling her over the parapet and onto the bridge. I was thinking of something along the lines of The Bridge Over San Luis Rey, a book about people who die when a bridge collapses. I read it so long ago I don't remember the details except it was a sort of question posed to the universe, why were these people chosen to die on this bridge on this day? In my idea I was thinking of the separate stories of the 3 people leading up to the meeting on the bridge and what happens to them afterward. The weird part is this. There is a cop show on television showing real cops being filmed going about their cop business by onboard squad car cameras. This particular segment dealt with a woman attempting to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge, the cop who grabs her skirt and keeps her from falling and another guy who helps pull her back onto the bridge. I didn't even remember writing the idea down but when I read it I certainly remembered the cop show segment.
The other thing I have done is sign up for an online course with Dr. Susan Friedman on parrot behaviour analysis for caregivers. Unfortunately there won't be an opening until 2012. Fortunately there is an online sort of mini-course which helps prepare one for the real thing. I've joined that group too. Have also ordered a couple of books, Don't Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor (which will help me help clients at work) and Clicker Training for Birds by ... a Menopausal Moment. Can't remember her name. Have also ordered a book by Dr. Irene Pepperburg about her relationship with Alex (not the scientific tome).
As for my relationship with Dimitri. Same-o, same-o. We are no closer to being friends than we were when I wrote last. What is different is my attitude. I've stopped trying so hard. Nor am I taking it personally. We'll go at his speed. I'm sure this course and the mini-course will help immensely. But in reality it's not vitally important that we be friends at this point. As I write he's sitting on the t-stand perch just outside the office. I put it there for him. There are many other places he could choose to sit but he's chosen that one. Interesting...although as it's time for their afternoon seed (Tach is on the monitor glowering) I shouldn't feel too complimented.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Rescued Baby Galah

November 7, 2009. This post was lost in the draft folder. So it actually predates the previous post. Don't know how to switch them so....Yesterday R went down to the yards to make up the evening horse feeds. I heard him calling my name, that urgent note permeating his voice that one hears only when something's amiss. Met him on the deck. "Come quickly, it's a galah." And it was, a soaking wet juvenile sitting forlornly on a stone near the horse trough. Everything but it's head was wet. When I picked it up I discovered it had an injured leg. The leg was stuck out straight and the toes, two forward, two back, seemed frozen in a forward position. It did have feeling however as when I gently pinched one of the toes it drew it back. The bird was also extremely thin, a sign of coccidiosis. When I saw its first poo later I didn't need a microscope to confirm the diagnosis. Dark vivid green and very watery.
We don't know whether the leg injury came about from a fight to survive in the water trough or is an existing one. It's obviously had the coccidiosis for awhile because it's so thin.
Don't want to call him an 'it' anymore. I've named him Amos. Of course, Amos may be an Amy but Amos will do for now. Having to crop feed him as he's so juvenile. In the wild Mum and Dad would be feeding him. I loathe crop feeding. Always fear that I will get the needle in the wrong place and kill him. As it was I overfilled his crop today and he aspirated a little formula. I felt like crap afterwards. Too much too soon and I should have known better. It's just that his thinness is a worry. If they are too thin for too long their liver is affected and there is no coming back.
The good news is he is far stronger and his poos are looking marginally better. I'm erring on the side of caution with the crop feeding so that's a good thing ... for awhile. Later on we'll have to up the ante so that he actually gains weight instead of just being maintained. It is so hard on them, however. Who would want some long steel tube thrust down their maw? Not me! Everyone stresses; Amos, me and R, who holds him while I mess around with size 8 crop needle and 20ml syringe.
Had a couple of bad days with Dimitri. Not with him. He hasn't changed. He's still as unpredictable as ever; accepting treats one minute and terrified for his life and limb the next. It was me, depressed and anxious, that was the problem. It is such a learning process about myself and the many many things I need to work on (like grow up for instance!).