It’s baby bird season and it seems as though someone calls every day with some feathered beak that needs feeding. Every time I get almost everyone to the point of release and out of my studio, another half dozen come in. Right now, it’s mourning doves and cedar waxwings. I love the doves, they are quiet gentle birds. You feed them with a syringe and they are happy for hours. The wax wing is a different story.
I have a new mantra and I recite it several times a day and several times a night. I will not feed my children to the cat… I will not feed my children to the cat… I will not feed my children to the cat. No matter how much I want to, I will not feed my children to the cat.
It reminds me a spot a few summers ago, when I just could not keep ahead of the birds.
It all started when someone called me from the local resort and wanted me to come get some baby birds on the golf course (there are 5 golf courses at this particular resort). The caller claimed that her boss found these baby birds and wanted somebody to come get them NOW. I explained that I prefer people to bring the birds to me and if they did I would be happy to take them. She said, “well he’s on a golf outing you know”. I counted to 10 under my breath.
“Oh of course” I said with all the sarcasm I could muster. “How could I possibly think MY time was as important as a GOLF game?” I heard giggles on the other end of the line. She said she would get back to me. I returned to work in the garden.
Ten minutes later the phone rang again with the same voice on the other end. “Well,” she said, He can’t possibly get away from his game, but you can pick them up on the sixth hole.”
I took a deep breath and dug up bit more sarcasm, “Gosh, I hope they aren’t in the way on the sixth hole, because it will snow in July before I run all over a golf course looking for those birds. Believe it or not, I do have other things to do. Tell your boss, that when he comes in to pee or get another beer or has lunch, he can just bring the birds in with him.”
More giggles on the other end. “I’ll call back”, she said. I went back out to the garden once again.
Twenty minutes go by and I’m thinking that the birds are a non-issue now and the phone rings again. I know who it’s going to be.
“Yes?”
“Someone is going out to get the birds. The will be on a towel at the pool.”
“I hope they enjoy their day at the pool. I’m not coming to get them. It doesn’t work that way. It works like this…you find the birds, you call me, you bring the birds out to me and then I take care of them”
“I’ll call you back”
At this point I’d have done anything to keep her from calling back. I gave up. “Ok”, I said. You win. I’ll come and get the birds on my way into town. Have them in a box by a door.”
“They will be at the pool on a towel.”
“They will be in a BOX and someone will have them in their POSESSION or I will NOT come to get them.”
“Ok”. She said then nothing but a dial tone.
As frustrated as I was I figured that I could drive around to the backside of the pool, grab the birds and still make my appointment in town. I headed for the house.
“Ring… Ring… Ring”
I held my breath and gritted my teeth as I answered the phone. It wasn’t her. It was someone calling from a local tattoo parlor. They had a bird too. They couldn’t bring it out either. I started breathing so deep that I thought I was going to hyperventilate. Ok, two sets of birds. I could do that.
I changed clothes, slid my feet into a pair of cheap and uncomfortable flip-flops and ran out the door. I got to the resort and the access road to the pool was blocked off. I parked in handicap parking in front of the health club. (Hey, let’s be honest here. What were the chances that all the handicap parking would be needed at the HEALTH CLUB?) I left the car running just in case I needed a quick get away. Inside, I discovered that I was two buildings and a tennis court away from the outdoor pool.
My appointment in town was rapidly approaching. I set off at the best trot a 50 plus-year-old rather chubby woman could muster. “Oh Owwwww!” I forgot about the cheap flip-flops. “Ok, I’ll just slow down”. I finally made it to the pool and tracked down the person with the birds. All three homely fuzzy birds were in a vodka box lined with a very expensive golf towel. I carried them all the way past the tennis courts and through two buildings.” Damn cheap freaking flip flops!”
At last the car was in sight. So were a tow truck and two burly security guards.
“You realize that you can’t park here without a permit,” said first security guard.
“Yes I know, I was making a pick up” I said holding up the vodka bottle box with the birds in it.
“Then you should have used the sewice dwive.” Said security guard two with a slight lisp. I started to breathe deeply again, my right eye began to twitch. They probably thought they were turning me on. “You know. I could wite you a ticket for pawking here with out a puwmit.”
I was breathing way too deep and way too fast. I was getting dizzy. “Look”, I said. It’s 90 degrees and I have just run all over this stinking place in cheap flip flops chasing after some stinking birds that someone from here called me to come and pick up. I’m hot and I have a blister the size of Rode Island. You go wite ahead and wite me that ticket, but you better be prepared because I KNOW what I’m gonna do with these birds when you’re done!”
The tow truck driver, obviously and older and wiser man, took the security officers by the arms and counseled, “Boys, I don’t think you want to screw with this lady. Her bumper sticker says “Caution: Driver just doesn’t give a damn any more”. Let’s not find out what exactly that means. Then he winked at me.
The birds and I drove off peaceably and unmolested or ticketed.
I went to my appointment and by the time I got back to my car, all five birds were screaming their heads off for food. I turned the radio up and ignored them as I drove to the tattoo parlor. There they had a young blue jay waiting for me. I like blue jays; I wasn’t disappointed and could feel my mood lifting. As I walked out the door, the young man with enough metal studs in his face to confuse a compass said. “Thanks for picking him up. The cat was pretty pissed off when I took him away”.
Whenever a cat touches a bird, whenever a cat even looks at a bird, the bird dies. Oh not always right away and not directly from his injuries, but he dies anyway. Cats have a bacteria in their mouths that as soon as it comes in contact with a small animal or bird sets off a chain reaction of massive septic shock. It’s like being bitten by a poisonous snake, sooner or later; it’s going to get you. In the case of cat spit on a bird, The bird has a maximum of 24 hours to live.
“How long ago did the cat get him?”
“Oh, yesterday afternoon. But he’s been doing really good since then”
I was hoping he was talking about the cat, because the bird didn’t look like he was feeling all that great.
On the way home the blue jay keeled over in the box. One down, three to go.
Now, one of the problems with baby birds is that for a certain length of time, you can’t really tell what they are. At that stage, we call them UFO’s (Unidentifiable Fuzzy Object). You can make some good guesses at what they are, but it usually takes the appearance of some feathers to be sure. I suspected these to be starlings and they were the last birds I wanted to raise…. Or so I thought.
As soon as I got home the phone was ringing again. Someone else had two baby birds, but at least they were willing to bring them over. They also thought that they were starlings. “Oh well, I already have three”
Several hours later they finally arrived and instead of two baby birds, there were FIVE baby birds. Oh boy, EIGHT baby birds to feed. I started soaking kitten chow.
The easiest thing to feed a baby bird is soaked kibble, either dog or cat. I like kitten chow as it is very high in protein. I remember my mother always tried to feed baby birds we brought home bread soaked in milk. They always died too. I wonder how that tradition ever came about. Though birds DO have breasts, they have no nipples. No nipples…no milk.Birds do not drink milk, but that’s what everyone thought you should feed them. It didn’t take me long to figure this out and used to mix up boiled egg, grains, peanut butter and olive oil for nestlings, but dog or cat food is so much easier and I always have it on hand.
The first night was tolerable; I popped bits of wet kitten chow into their wide-open mouths about every hour till I went to bed. The next morning though, I could hear them from upstairs. It took my sleep-blurred mind a few moments to process exactly what had woken me up at dawn. I went down and fed them. By the time I got dressed, they were hungry again. I fed them till they stopped screeching and made coffee. They were hungry again. This went on from dawn to dusk. Every time they heard a noise or saw a shadow, they thought they should be fed. We started tiptoeing around the house and speaking in hushed tones.
Within a few days I could tell that none of the birds were feathering out like starlings. The set of five was developing soft gray plumage and the three younger ones were coming in blue black. Starlings are always black with whitish speckles. I’d have to wait a bit longer to see what they were. There was one thing I knew though; they were getting on my nerves.
Every time the five started to scream, it would make my skin crawl. I would go in to feed them and the noise would match the decibel level of an old lawn mower…in a small room. They would finish eating and I would somehow feel sad. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Then in a flash, it came to me.
When the great towers fell on 9-11, the television coverage of ground zero was constant. The world watched while they searched for survivors with heavy equipment and trained rescue dogs. Every once in a while they would stop all the equipment and listen for sounds of trapped survivors in the collapsed buildings. The only sounds were the whistles of the emergency locators on the gear the firemen buried in the rubble. The sound the birds were making was the same sound. The sound of lost heroes. No wonder it made me sad. Thankfully, the birds only made that sound for about a week. Then they moved on to a new screech that was more like fingernails on a chalkboard.
It wasn’t long before I realized that the gray birds were cowbirds and the black birds were grackles. Two of the most destructive and obnoxious birds in the wild. Cowbirds lay their eggs in other bird’s nests. Usually only one or two at a time (they must have thought that the starling parents were real suckers and gave them the whole family). The cowbird eggs hatch with the host birds eggs, but the cowbirds grow much faster. They will take most of the food that the parent birds bring and crowd out the smaller nestlings. Soon all that is left is one or two very large, very fat cowbird fledglings. Grackles at least raise their own young, but travel in large flocks and are capable of emptying a bird feeder in the blink of an eye. They are noisy and far from pleasant sounding songbirds. Combine the two and you have an eardrum rupturing, nerve-shredding, head splitting experience.
I felt like Quasimodo with the bells of Notre Dame when he grabbed his head and cried “The bells! The bells!” With us it was “The birds! The birds” Evil thoughts started creeping their way into my head. A little voice was whispering in my ear. “Cats. Cats eat birds. Just call the cats…. Here kitty, kitty, kitty”
“NO! I WILL NOT FEED MY CHILDREN TO THE CAT!” I will chant it as often as I need to. “I will not feed my children to the cat”. They will be grown up soon and fly away. I can do this. Only a few more weeks.