sandeyeWELCOME! (overview)
July 23rd 2007 18:40
Since feeding ducks in my English childhood, through having a pet budgie during my teens, and regular geese feeding trips, accompanied by my young son, at a local lake, after raiding a baker’s waste bin each morning, birds have played an important part of my life right through. My son and I moved to the Illawarra district, escaping the Sydney suburbs, in the middle of 2001. The very first thing we saw when opening the back door of our new rental property on the day we moved in, was a note and photo pinned to the back door. It informed the new residents - us - that their was a tame magpie who could be hand-fed pieces of cheese and would sometimes walk inside the house. The photo showed this beautiful bird perched on a former resident’s leg. My enthusiastic son was looking for the said bird within days.
For the first 2-3 years of living here, we did make acquaintance with a pair of magpies, and witnessed a couple of their generations of offspring also. They got to know us, and indeed, they would walk right inside at times, though they preferred to sit on our doormat and eat tiny pieces of cheese from a white plastic tub in addition to pecking about the lawns for grubs. They moved out of the area the following year, probably because some large ravens moved into the park nearby and bullied them. However, it was at around this time that we first made acquaintance with the next flock of birds - a couple of show-pigeons.
We are not aware of where they came from, but assume that they were released by a breeder due to being imperfect in some way. We simply found them pecking about our yard one day, when returning from a day trip. My son fed them some chip crumbs, which they ate greedily. The following day, I threw down some soup grains, as they were still there, and when they flew down and gobbled these up also, I realized I would need to go to the grocery store and buy some birdseed. Since that day, they have feasted upon two helpings of wild birdseed, sometimes with budgie seed, cheese, or scraps of homemade bread or rice left over from our dinner plates. They gave birth to three beautiful pure-white sons, and a lovely gray son. We set up a dog water bowl for a bath/water source, and we have had these pigeons ever since, living upon the alcove/windowsills at night, feeding from us and hanging out with us by day.
Around a week ago, the original male became poorly. I scooped him up from next door’s yard in a washing basket, and laid him on a soft towel in our entryway. The pigeons often came inside, like the magpies, so he was not scared to be brought inside. He made it through the night, managed a drink via a spoon of water, and I was just beginning to hope he might pull through from the poisoning, when he began to cool, and then passed away. I sat with him in his last moments, and spoke the words of a Tibetan Buddhist chant for his peace. Then I buried him in the yard, under a cactus, with two feathers his wife-bird dropped.
He was a really special bird to me. Whenever I was sad, and moped leaning on my windowsill, he would come up and stare in at me from outside, understanding me. He was the bravest of them all, and never flinched when I moved the curtains, or shifted position. He often sat on my head, shoulder, or wrist when I went outside, or fed the birds. His death really hurt my heart because we had been so close.
Sometime in the next few months, I hope to write a book about the birds that I have encountered in the back yard and on my many nature hikes locally. That special pigeon is going to star on the cover. I had already planned this book, but his death means that it will be the next book I write, rather than slotting in a family drama novel and life appreciation book first. In the meantime, I decided that I would start up a blog, just dealing with the local bird life, which I truly care about. Once the book is published, people may want to read updates on these birds I have written of, and I thought this blog might also be a good place for them to learn the latest.
For the first 2-3 years of living here, we did make acquaintance with a pair of magpies, and witnessed a couple of their generations of offspring also. They got to know us, and indeed, they would walk right inside at times, though they preferred to sit on our doormat and eat tiny pieces of cheese from a white plastic tub in addition to pecking about the lawns for grubs. They moved out of the area the following year, probably because some large ravens moved into the park nearby and bullied them. However, it was at around this time that we first made acquaintance with the next flock of birds - a couple of show-pigeons.
We are not aware of where they came from, but assume that they were released by a breeder due to being imperfect in some way. We simply found them pecking about our yard one day, when returning from a day trip. My son fed them some chip crumbs, which they ate greedily. The following day, I threw down some soup grains, as they were still there, and when they flew down and gobbled these up also, I realized I would need to go to the grocery store and buy some birdseed. Since that day, they have feasted upon two helpings of wild birdseed, sometimes with budgie seed, cheese, or scraps of homemade bread or rice left over from our dinner plates. They gave birth to three beautiful pure-white sons, and a lovely gray son. We set up a dog water bowl for a bath/water source, and we have had these pigeons ever since, living upon the alcove/windowsills at night, feeding from us and hanging out with us by day.
Around a week ago, the original male became poorly. I scooped him up from next door’s yard in a washing basket, and laid him on a soft towel in our entryway. The pigeons often came inside, like the magpies, so he was not scared to be brought inside. He made it through the night, managed a drink via a spoon of water, and I was just beginning to hope he might pull through from the poisoning, when he began to cool, and then passed away. I sat with him in his last moments, and spoke the words of a Tibetan Buddhist chant for his peace. Then I buried him in the yard, under a cactus, with two feathers his wife-bird dropped.
He was a really special bird to me. Whenever I was sad, and moped leaning on my windowsill, he would come up and stare in at me from outside, understanding me. He was the bravest of them all, and never flinched when I moved the curtains, or shifted position. He often sat on my head, shoulder, or wrist when I went outside, or fed the birds. His death really hurt my heart because we had been so close.
Sometime in the next few months, I hope to write a book about the birds that I have encountered in the back yard and on my many nature hikes locally. That special pigeon is going to star on the cover. I had already planned this book, but his death means that it will be the next book I write, rather than slotting in a family drama novel and life appreciation book first. In the meantime, I decided that I would start up a blog, just dealing with the local bird life, which I truly care about. Once the book is published, people may want to read updates on these birds I have written of, and I thought this blog might also be a good place for them to learn the latest.
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Comment by Ash
Australian Traveller
Flashes of memories
Welcome to Orble. What an interesting topic you have here. I just loved this:
I truly am sorry to hear of your loss... happy that you both got share those last moments together though.
Look forward to reading your blog. I love birds!
ash