Sunday, July 01, 2007

My birds

Ah, for those of you who know me, or of me, my time is divided between work, animals, family and friends. And the animalspart seems to have taken over more than I'd planned. I've always been a campaigner for animal rights and while other kids where fighting for peace in the middle east, and donating to cancer, I have always given my (what little of it there is) cash to Animal. Liberation, RSPCA, etc. And I've been rescuing birds for a while now. There are lots of posts about this stuff, but I just wanted to post this one, because Charlie is still not growing his feathers back. He first went bald, and then his wings thinned out. He seems happy, eating a lot, riding around on my shoulder (more now than usual) sitting on or under lamps (more so again now, to keep warm) and still is able to find my favourite things to sleep on, and then lick and poop on. I don't mind but it's remarkbable how savvy he is about things that are important to me. He loves electrical things, but there are a lot of them in this house but he loves my lap top and phone the most. And recently he's taken a real shine to this Cassidy doll a fan sent to me.
Obviously she a bit too Barbie doll to be Cass for real, but I like her style. Clearly, so does my little Charlie. I've also post a picture of how he looked as a baby and one as a fully fledged honey eater and now. I take him to the bird vet almost every week and give him medicine twice a day (we hate that bit) but so far, nothing has schanged (except under those sweet feathers is now a tiny white pot belly from all the flowers I pick at my mum's place in the hills for him - that cheeky thing. Just because his face and legs are so scrawny I figured he was all Mary Kate and Ashley, but instead, he's hiding a ssecret little bit of Uncle Buck...
As I work late at night most nights, I try to take a disco nap in the afternoon and I have to put my white eye muff on to stop him cleanign each eye lash to perfection. So now he moves in, slowly (I've watched him through my slitty sneaky eye until he's under my nose (it's not that big,but big enough for a honey eater, she says nervously...) and then fluffs up and goes to sleep in the warmth of my snoring face. He tucks his head so far into the back of his wings I don't know which end is head or tail. I think my face gets the head bit.
If you ever see a honeyeater around your area (there are loads of the black and yellow New Hollands around right now) you'll know them by their 'crack crack' sort of sing song, then you're lucky, they're a delight, curious, cheerful and good hearted.

1 Comments:

Blogger Chapter Forty said...

Hi Kirsty. Reading about Charlie, reminds me so much of Orbit, he was also a hand raised honey eater same as Charlie. He also loved to lick my eyelashes when I was taking a nanna nap. He died more than 5 years ago and I miss him still. I have zebra finches now like you, but mine are all intact. I agree their noise can be really annoying, at first I thought it was cute and like an endearing squeaky toy, but that didn't last long as the peeping relented.
I let mine breed, we had about 8 babies, but sadly they were terrible parents and as they fledged the nest, they attacked their babies and wouldn't feed them. The babies didn't know about eating seed themselves so all but one died. It was a horrible time, everyday another dead baby. I had to hide this daily tragedy from my little boy.
I think the couple were too young to know any better. They needed family support like most parents. I now only have the mother and a son, Zig and Zag. The father flew away when I had a cage disaster, cage clips came apart as I was cleaning it.
I have found they love fresh greens cuttlefish and bathing.
I really enjoy reading about your bird antics.

2:09 pm, June 22, 2009  

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