Birds

Since we moved in here 3 years ago,I have encountered my fair share of baby birds.  3 x at the paws of cats and others by happenstance.  A baby bull-bull was was the first sweet friend to arrive literally at my front door.  A chubby little fellow fluttering all over the place, his parents were creating such a fuss.  I picked him up, put him back in the Willow tree above our house and he hopped back up to his nest. We were not associated for long - so he was never named. 

Next up was 'Birdie'.  Ben, my neighbours cat - was having a fine time licking him and wacking him all over my garden - so was dutifuly rescued.  He was a baby mousebird - absolutely adorable and stayed with us for 3 days, until his quiet little trembling death in my hands.  He was too cute - even joined me at church.  He would snuggle in my shirt and climb onto my shoulder. 

Then I met a pigeon.  A juvenile, he was still quite fluffy. I sighed at first sight.  I find I sigh a lot.  Well, I reckon it's because I feel a ton of responsibility on my shoulders 24/7 and then feel terribly responsible for these little creatures too.  I sent him home quite easily, his nest was in my neighbours tree - and he now dive bombs me every once in a while while I'm walking down my stairs.

The baby egyptian goose...he was stranded under my tramploine at the bottom of the garden.  His mom and dad and numerous siblings had gone for a stroll that morning and then been seperated. I would have left him until his folks returned, but all 4 of my own children were yelling at me to save him - talk about kiddie pressure, so down I went.  Tricky.  Geese can MOVE.  Very quickly.  In the bottom of our garden we have a marshy area.  Home to Mongoose, snakes, dassies, vlei lourie(and also remembering the predators from the sky - Viktor, the Yellow billed kite who thoroughly enjoys feasting on the smaller birds, I constantly find bird carcasses under his kitchen tree) - all happy little predators.  And little Mr Goose was making quite a fuss, he even had an ugly old hadeda have a go at him. After enjoying a very refreshing run along the bank of our marsh together, and a quick sprint through our neighbours fence and through their stream we decided we were quite done.  I was covered in mud and said goose's heart was beating up a storm.  He was safely re-united with his quacking family later that afternoon. 

We had a terrible storm one Tuesday afternoon, heavy rain, loud thunder and hectic lightening.  The kids and I were huddled on the couch downstairs while Brod was upstairs getting dressed for a PEC meeting.  We all heard a terrific clap of thunder, and then a loud crack just outside.  The pine tree next to our place was hit.  And down spiraled a very dead hadeda.  Poor thing.  He was dutifully buried the next morning by Brod, and the 4 children.  It was a short ceremony.  He was not well known. And since he was generally suspected to have pooped all over our stairs and ransacked our bin outside, he was not going to be missed.

I'd always wondered what a baby hadeda looked like.  They are generally ugly birds.  The common ibis.  They have the most amazing cousins - sacred ibis and the scarlet ibis.  But the common ibis - hadeda(nicknamed after their honking call that they make mostly when startled) is the common cow of the bird species.  They are numerous and widespread.  And then one day, in the garden, I noticed a hadeda flying up into the pine tree with a very long and awkward looking stick. I realised said hadeda was building a nest - and felt I would finely be able to see first hand what the juvenile would look like.  Which I did a few weeks later - but all I really saw was the head.  And by that time, their neighbours, a nesting pair of yellowbilled kites had hatched 2 babies which of course were far more intriguing for our little family and we spent hours gazing through our binoculars from our bedroom windows amazed at what we were witnessing. This was during 2009.

In 2010, the nesting hadedas returned, as did the yellow billed kites.  They both hatched some more juniors, and this time I had a real close up view of a baby hadeda.  It was the last week of school, first week of December.  Phoebe had a sweet red haired friend from school come visit - James.  They were playing outside, and came running in to tell me there was a baby hadeda on the trampoline.  Would you believe that this dear little creatures nest, which by anyones standards is horrendously large and badly built - they have crazy long beaks so delicate weaving is just not an option - was positioned just above the trampoline?!  He'd fallen out but was saved by a very well placed safety aid.  He'd been there all day, was soaking wet - it'd been raining the whole day too, and was walking in circles.  He was very cute none the less.  He looked like a kiwi actually.  He was gone by the next morning - to what end, I know not.

My final bird story took place just yesterday.  We have a nesting pair of Cape Robin Chats that come and collect their worms in our garden and sometimes sit and chat to Meow Meow - our ginger cat.  No lies.  They literally talk to each other, Meow Meow at the window, and Mr/Mrs Chat at the fence.  Yesterday, it was insufferably hot.  A storm was brewing.  The wind picked up and I glanced outside, and saw Mr Meow Meow playing in the big garden.  He was playing with something that looked like a bird. A bird?  And it seemed to be looking at him.  It reminded me of a chat, and sure enough, in the trees above and swooping down were the parents.  Darn.  So out I ran, grabbed Meow Meow - had a quick squizz at baby bird - who was adorable and chubby and eying me too, checked out the parents and ran inside.  Cute bird, but I did not know where the nest was, and by this time thunder and lightening was all over.  The kids and i(and a very ticked off cat) watched from the window as the dad flew down from the tree and led his little one all the way back down the garden, hopping very sweetly.  I felt as pleased as punch to have witnessed that.  I love nature.