Report from the Home Front: Hector and the Society Matrons

Posted on February 8, 2014 by Lisa Rest

After two weeks of observing a very bored and resigned Isabella, I broke down and introduced three new Society Finches into the home bird mix this weekend.

Isabella today, in a much better mood

Let me back up and say goodbye to Ferdinand, her former companion. He was still singing but a mess, unable to fly and down to his last feathers, before I left on my trip in November, so it was no big surprise to find out he had succumbed while I was gone. I knew I would miss his singing, for sure. But not missing having to cart him around every time I had to clean the cages, because he could not fly, not to mention his miserable self. If I took any pictures of him in his reduced condition I am not interested in finding them.

Isabella, Hector, Rikki and Phoenix

I started writing this post weeks ago, and now the Societies have moved in. Indeed for a while there it appeared they were taking over. They are recognizable by variations in appearance, and so I have named them Hector, who is a scruffy little pale male with a punk hairdo, Phoenix who is the darker one more resembling Isabella but not quite, and Rikki, who has a pink bill and a very loud call.

Hector

I bought three birds to practically insure I would get a male and have his song to compare to Ferdinand’s. There were about 16 birds or so in a tiny cage at PetSmart so it was a crap shoot which ones I would get when the young attendant opened the cage door from behind and started waving around his net. Hector is quite lighter than the others and he was smaller, so I wasn’t sure I wanted him, but now I’m glad he came, he’s definitely a character.

His song is quite different from Ferdinand’s. My first impression of his song was a little like a Winter Wren trying to sing Papageno’s “Magic Flute” song. Click on the clip below to hear him (apologies for the shaky background music).

After I’d had them a couple days, in a moment of weakness I decided to buy some nest boxes and put them around. The two bamboo ones have hooks on the back so they were made to stick in the cage. The other thatch nests I hung around but there is only one left after the budgies started chewing holes in them, and it belongs to Zorro and Fiona, in the same spot as their forever failing curtain nest but now replacing it.

The bamboo nests are in one finch cage and initially had 10 or so eggs between them. The three new Societies have been taking turns sitting on them. Three weeks ago I had no idea whether the eggs were fertilized but they seemed to think so. And just about when I had given up hope, I began to hear little begging noises. I haven’t had birds breeding in the house for years, so this is kind of a nice diversion. I’m always up for hearing begging sounds in key with the music and new songs developing among young males. If I do get a couple males it will be interesting to see whether their songs imitate Hector’s or if they branch out on their own like my Zebra Finches tended to do when they were going at it.

Rikki

But I will be removing the nest boxes after fledging because I do not want to continue this experiment ad infinitum. Inbreeding is not my calling and it shouldn’t be theirs either.

Society Finches don’t use a lot of nesting material like Zebra Finches so it’s practically impossible to resist looking inside when one nest doesn’t have anyone sitting on it. Last night when I was cleaning, I saw one, possibly two, pink eraser-like blobs moving in the leftmost nest. This morning I seemed to be able to see two or three with some feathers in the righthand nest. I tried to take a picture but it’s impossible to get anything between the cage rungs and the darkness inside. Not to mention it’s always a challenge to get pictures indoors anyway, with the cages backlit against the living room windows.

If nothing else Hector and his Society Matrons have livened up the place and all the other birds have grown used to them. I hope to have baby pictures soon. In the meantime here’s another picture of Hector.

Frozen in Time

Posted on February 1, 2014 by Lisa Rest

Why, why, why do I

Always think I

Have more energy

Than I do?

Ice on the Chicago River

Why, why, why do I

Think I’ll do

More than I’ll ever

Get around to?

Thursday’s heat wave

Twenty-four seven

Four-thirty a.m till eleven

The days are way too long

Ring-Billed Gull, downtown Chicago by the river

And yet they fly

So quickly by

Can’t help but live them wrong

Chief Nemesis on my feeder

It’s only when the clock stops

And I am in the moment

That life comes by

Looks me in the eye

Red-Breasted Merganser on the Chicago River

And says what it so meant

American Robin, Cancer Survivors Garden 1-31-14

Life is quick

Life’s a kick

Life can be expendable

What we share

Can take us there

And always be commendable

OH NO not more SNOW

During the week and even into the weekend, I find myself distracted by too many multi-tasking thoughts. So to stop and be in the moment is priceless and irresistible. I think it must be what I love about taking pictures. I am trying to freeze a moment in time, in memory. I am also paying attention, so that inhibits the clutter of distraction. So that must be why it felt so good to pull the camera out on the way in to work the last two mornings–after two weeks of working through lunch or barely getting out at all–to stop and shoot at the river’s edge. It’s a creative process, too; the excitement of seeing something that looks like a potential photograph and trying to capture it with the camera, it’s a vision, however momentary. But it also takes me out of myself and I focus on the subject. And that is why I love birds so very much: they make me forget about me. Reminds me of that line in Joni Mitchell’s song, “All I Want” from the Blue album, “Oh I love you when I forget about me.” But with the birds it’s different. They also remind me of who I really am, without that act I have to put on during the work week.

The ultimate peace is to be relieved of one’s constant mind. I think they used to call it “Nirvana.” (No, this is not intended to be a musical reference this time. 🙂 )

Mourning Doves in my neighbor’s tree

P.S. This House Finch was supposed to be in this post but she somehow didn’t make it.

Female House Finch

I Can Hear You Callin’

Posted on January 11, 2014 by Lisa Rest

Black-Capped Chickadee

I think I was hearing the music to “It Keeps You Runnin'” by the Doobie Brothers/Michael McDonald when I thought up this title instead of the Three Dog Night music which is where it belongs, but the phrase was inspired by two experiences I had this week on the way to the train in the morning through the snow and cold.

As if to welcome the new year, I heard both a Black-Capped Chickadee and a Northern Cardinal singing on January 2. It seemed quite remarkable then, as it was already snowy and cold, but as the weather deteriorated further, it has been eerily quiet around the neighborhood through all the arctic chill. Wolf-whistling European Starlings, something I could always count upon in previous years, are a distant memory,

Thursday morning I was in a general funk on the way to the train. Every body part ached, piles of snow seemed almost insurmountable, layers of clumsy clothing further impeding whatever is left of my agility, and I was not looking forward to going to work and was generally tired of even trying to deal with it.

Then when I was perhaps three blocks from home, a distant Black-Capped Chickadee started to sing, immediately interrupting my misery. I tried to respond – my whistle not being very whet – and he sang back. My whistle improved, and we continued like this, back and forth, for a moment of another block or so until I got out of range. Donald Kroodsma so aptly describes the song, “Hey, Sweetie” – and I realized the Chickadee had come to my rescue and completely dispelled all my negative, self-absorbed thoughts. It was almost as if he heard me calling out for help and responded in the only way he could, by offering song, since he was too far away for me to hear his call, “dee-dee-dee.” How wonderful for him to be there to remind me that music is the most important thing in life.

Northern Cardinal

And yesterday morning, again on the way to the train, albeit the weather forecast improving slightly and my mood much improved by the fact that it was Friday, a Northern Cardinal began to sing with a bit of reserve. I whistled back, almost under my breath, and that must have inspired him because he started to sing louder, more elaborate phrases. I do not in any way attribute this to “countersinging.” He knew I was not another bird and he was not trying to out-whistle me. Indeed, I think he was glad to have an audience and was inspired by my response to his singing because then he knew someone was listening. And this gets back to the very first times I started playing music for birds and listening to their response. We began to communicate in this way: we were listening to each other. It’s not all about territory and attracting mates. It’s about the sheer joy of making music and offering communication to the universe. The birds have known this for millennia. Through them I again come to realize music is the defining force in my life.

As I sit here brewing another pot of bird-friendly coffee, my indoor birds call and sing, back and forth, and the radio is playing infinite Strauss waltzes and polkas. Outside, a considerable melt is progressing, now with a forecast for flooding. Walking home through driving rain, deep puddles and melting snow and ice last night was an adventure I don’t care to repeat. Although I welcome changes in weather as they dispel monotony, now a little monotony would be appreciated.

But the birds never stop paying attention, and to them, every day is new, and now, longer than the last. They are attuned to every nuance in the climate because they live in it. Most likely the extended daylight has triggered the singing responses of my avian friends in the morning. And I am thankful that I was out walking early enough to hear them. I am also convinced my responses to their singing were almost as important to them as their expressions of life were to me.

I’ll Scratch Your Back if…

Posted on December 23, 2013 by Lisa Rest

African Spoonbill and Sacred Ibis

I’m finally starting to go through all my pictures from the East African safari and instead of feeling overwhelmed, I’m enjoying the process. I’m also surprised at how many species I still remember. Two weeks in Central Standard Time has not totally wiped away the experience.

Allopreening in birds has always fascinated me. I’m sure it’s related to grooming in primates, which I think some propose led to the human behaviors of smiling, laughing and talking. It’s definitely a social, bonding function.

For instance I have two surviving healthy budgies who would never have had anything to do with each other until it became apparent to both of them that they were It, and in addition to keeping each other company, they now engage in allopreening more and more, and it’s lovely to see.

African Spoonbill

On the second day in Tanzania when we stopped to look at some shorebirds, spoonbills, ibises and herons, I could not help but notice an unusual instance of interspecies allopreening, namely a Sacred Ibis preening a bent-over African Spoonbill. I don’t know if I pay more attention to this kind of behavior because I live with birds, but I suspect that might be why it came up on my radar.

Sacred Ibis Preening African Spoonbill

This is an extraordinary amount of cooperation, and I only have to wonder what precipitated it…that silent, unspoken world of communication that birds are so much better at than we are.

It then occurred to me that I could also get a video clip, and so there is a short one below.

It’s obvious that the bird being preened is getting a lot out of this, but there has to be something in it for the preener too. It seems almost more enjoyable for the bird doing the preening. Maybe in another life he was a hair stylist. “You have such beautiful white feathers. Let me straighten them out for you.”

Off the Beaten Track

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Lisa Rest

Brown Thrasher, Millennium Park, 4-24-13

Brown Thrasher, Millennium Park, 4-23-13

I want to take a moment to thank you all for encouraging me to do this! Before I started the blog I was approaching a point in my life when I realized I had to make decisions about how I was going to be spending whatever “free” time I have, as there is so little of it left to my own discretion. Maybe in the back of my mind I did realize that keeping up the blog was going to consume a lot of that time. There was an “oh no” moment when I wondered what I had gotten myself into, but it didn’t last long.

And the blog took a different turn than I had originally planned. It has strayed more than a bit from the music and is often more about the birds, and in particular, pictures of birds. But in pursuit of those pictures, I find myself even more connected to the original conception.

I never set out to be a photographer: I only wanted to capture the birds’ images. Looking at them through the lens and later developing the images continues to inform me of the nuances in appearance and behavior, and reinforces what I remember from my encounters with them.

Indeed, they are encounters. One reason why I love to go looking for birds alone is because there are often one-on-one exchanges between us, when we both become creatures inhabiting the same space for a moment, and we acknowledge each other’s presence: it’s a form of recognition, of greeting, of communication that I find so special I am drawn to seek further encounters, wherever and whenever they may occur.

And therein lies the magic of it all. By making photography part of the obsession, I now go out more often, have more encounters, learn more, and feel inspired by the whole quest. And lately I have had this feeling, which I know I should distrust, but that I am becoming perhaps just a little bit better at it, with the sounds and the sights, of birds. I will never approach the level of those who have been searching after birds their entire lives, or certainly anyone who has years more of field experience than I do, but it is indeed a cumulative thing, and every year I feel more confident, more informed, and all the more curious. I have to keep reminding myself never to assume I know anything because a bird will surprise me when I least expect it to.

The birds are watching us all the time. They are curious about us too. We’re all in this together.

White-Throated Sparrow, Millennium Park, 4-24-13

Not a Confusing Fall Warbler

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Lisa Rest

Black-Throated Green Warbler

Sometimes birds are named to describe what they look like, and the male Black-Throated Green Warbler is one of them. This is the time of year when a lot of birds don’t look like they did in the spring, but I could not have confused this fellow with anyone else. I was lucky enough to spend time with him this morning shortly before I had to head into work. I’d been walking around looking for migrants almost an hour and a half, and then he appeared, almost at eye level.

I got to thinking later about how it was when I first discovered birds and they began to let me into their secret world. I had never noticed them before, and suddenly, they were everywhere, unidentified. And because no one else seemed to be paying attention to them, I felt as if I had the key to a secret society.

Now I think about it: how many absolutely gorgeous birds there are on earth that we hardly ever see? Indeed, there are species yet undiscovered. And even when they do show up, how often do we really get to see them well? I’m not too interested in just checking a bird off my list. I want to feel as if we shared a mutual encounter. And that was how it was with this bird. I was special again: graced by his presence, by the moment just between us. No other birds, no other humans. It’s as if I, too, became magical, momentarily protected by his invisible shield. I don’t know what it’s like to be a Black-Throated Green Warbler. But for a moment I inhabited the same space on the planet with one.

Later this afternoon when I went out again, I encountered the same bird in the same location and let him be. But elsewhere in the park, I found another male, and managed to get a picture of him. You can see the “green” he is named for.

Chummy, In Memoriam

Posted on August 18, 2012 by Lisa Rest

A much younger Chummy.

I’m going to take a little break from the wild birds and write a post tribute to my budgie Chummy.

Chummy is second from left in the “blue” row. “Beau” is missing from this picture.

The budgie presence is dwindling in my house. Chummy, the last of four siblings, died this week. I got to know his softer side all too well in the last month or so.

A fledgling Chummy napping

Chummy and his nestmates were the one clutch produced by Buffy and Beau, who were brother and sister. I know, I know, I didn’t want to encourage this behavior! But Buffy had come of age and was starting to attack her mother, Blanche, who was still in the baby business, so I gave Buffy her own nest box to distract her.

The other three were named Chuck, Chewy and Maureen. Maureen was an aqua budgie, but I had already given the name Aqua to another budgie, so I named her Aqua Maureen and called her Maureen. Both she and Chewy have been gone for years. Chuck passed away earlier this year after a long struggle with liver disease, or whatever it was that made his beak grow intolerably long.

Chums on June 9, 2012

Both Chuck and Chummy had the distinguishing characteristic of little white spots on their heads, which made them easier to differentiate from too many blue budgies. Chuck and Chewy were of the royal blue persuasion, and Chummy and Maureen were more turquoise. Chewy’s distinguishing feature was an upper mandible deformity which grew out of control, so he had some trouble eating and was therefore eating all the time.

Chummy and his soul mate

At any rate, about two months ago I noticed Chummy, also known as Mr. Chums, had struck up a passionate love affair with a nameless female budgie who was in the royal blue family but more baby blue or sky blue, thereby making her look almost aqua when she was sitting up close to Chummy. In retrospect, I think Chums decided to go for it, as he saw his own mortality after Chuck passed away. Anyway, it was sometimes almost hard to look at these two kissing and fussing over each other, I felt like I was intruding on their privacy even though their displays were quite public. In the picture of them above, Chummy is hiding, his face buried in his rump, which had begun to torment him to the point where he eventually chewed his tail feathers off.

With his tail gone, suddenly Chummy couldn’t fly like he used to. You need a tail, it’s a rudder, it’s a prop, it’s a balance. I soon found myself picking Chummy up off the floor and carrying him around to wherever he might want to go. I knew he wanted to be up by the curtain rod with his girlfriend, but the one time we tried that he crashed to the floor, so that was no longer an option. She met him once a couple weeks ago when he happened to be on top of a finch cage, and they had a passionate reunion, but that was the last time. I know he missed her company terribly, but he couldn’t fly up to sit with her, and she wasn’t going to come down and sit with him because the curtain rod is where the budgies like to hang out. So as much as she might have missed Chummy, he was no longer fit to court her, and her loyalty was to the flock.

Chummy’s last days were spent trying to get places and failing at it. If I was around I picked him up after he refused the back of my hand, which he walked right over, or my finger under his tummy, which he walked right past. We both hated it when I picked him up, but it was the only practical solution and he all too quickly got used to it. After a while if I was sitting at the dining room table and he was on the floor he’d wander over and start nibbling at my sandaled toes to get my attention. He needed a lift.

I came home from work Monday night and Chums was sitting on the floor by the dining room table, his back toward me, staring into space. I picked him up and knew by his total lack of protest he was almost gone. I put him in the bottom of the budgie cage because it was a quiet and safe place, even if one of the zebra finches has started building a newspaper nest in one of the food cups. Chummy listed to one side and stared at the bottom of the cage. I went down to the basement to clean the spare set of finch cages, my Monday night chore. When I came back upstairs, Chummy was flat on his back, stiff.

Maybe it’s time I gave his girlfriend a name. The other remaining female is Sweet Pea, but she’s a deeper blue. Somehow this little girl never got a name, but she has a sweet face. Maybe Baby for her shade of blue will do. It’s not a very original name, but it seems almost disingenuous to try to attach a distinguishing characteristic to her after all these years. She’s presently napping in between the curtain loops with three of the other four remaining blue budgies. We’re down to five blues (Zeke, the steel blue-grey dad or grandfather of them all, Beau, if that is indeed him, Sweet Pea, and another unidentified blue male, so I guess I’d better get around to naming him too, now that I can no longer use “too many blue budgies” as an excuse), and Buster, the one remaining white budgie. Now we are six.

Goodbye, Mr. Chums.

Close Encounters of the Bird Kind

Aside

Crows, Grant Park, 4-13-2011

I started feeding birds so that I could observe them, get to know them, even try to imagine what it is like to be a bird, I suppose. Birds that possess the phenomenon of flight are wondrous for that alone. Their ability to fly symbolizes freedom, just as the horses I loved in my youth accomplished a land-based form of flight, enabled by power and speed.

Entrance to the bird world with food is common, of course. It’s about the only way you can get a bird’s attention long enough to bother with you. Who can blame birds for not being too curious about us? If anything, we have been creatures to fear. So when I have been feeding birds long enough that they come to trust me, I feel blessed that I am welcome to cross the barrier temporarily that must remain between us, however fleeting the moment. There is nothing more remarkable to me than the velvet sound of a crow’s wings passing close over my head.

Or the direct eye contact with a Robin who stands his ground as I acknowledge his presence.

As I was writing part of this, my zebra finch Pietro landed on my head to check out my hair. Was he only looking for nesting material, or does he sometimes entertain the thought of preening me?

I was wandering about the park on my lunch hour last week, looking for migrants even though it’s too early to expect them, almost having to remind myself to take photographs anyway, even if they were of the same birds I’ve been seeing all year. As I walked up the hill on my way back to work, a woman stopped to ask me if I was a birdwatcher or a photographer and I said a bit of both. That one sort of drives the other. We had a short conversation about my engagement and her lack thereof, I suppose, as I had inadvertently distracted her from her tennis game with my pursuit of birds. I apologized, only to have her thank me. Perhaps tennis was not her calling that day, but she was definitely aware following birds around was mine.

It doesn’t happen too often, but I have affected people before. Years ago when I used to feed the pigeons that followed me around like a train, it was when I was sitting hanging out with them as they clambered over each other to get at the bird seed or landed on my hand or my head (I never, ever got pooped on!) – from time to time a student from the Art Institute would come to draw me or take a picture. Pigeons were my easy entry into the bird world; they have accompanied human settlement for millennia. But they also taught me how to read expression that went beyond that pale orange eye. And I learned to recognize some of them by their distinctive coloring or behavior.

I have to say most of the people I work with who know I am interested in birds usually come to tell me about birds they have seen, and in this I feel as if I have made a contribution. If I have managed to get one more person to pay attention to something in nature that they otherwise would not have bothered, then I have done my job. This week, however, a superior ran into me leaving one afternoon in my usual garb: Chicago Audubon baseball cap, binoculars around my neck, camera slung on my shoulder. She said, “I suppose it’s a nice hobby.” I am sure she was trying to be nice or more like trying to find a way to deal with my get-up, but I took silent offense to the word “hobby” and her lack of curiosity. My obsession with birds, if you will, is more a way of life than a “hobby.” Being in nature is not a hobby. A hobby connotes something someone has taken up because they decide to do it, not necessarily because it picks them. Here’s the dictionary definition: “an activity or interest pursued for pleasure or relaxation and not as a main occupation.”

It’s true, I am not “paid” to pay attention to birds but I think of it as more of a main occupation than my paying job, so I guess it’s a matter of interpretation.

With birds, it has been more of a calling. At the start of my association with the avians, when the birds came to hear the music, they chose me to tell a part of their story no one else had told before. If it meant telling people they sang in key with the music, maybe that would let people know that birds had something in common with us. As I attempt to do justice to the birds’ story, I am always in discovery, never knowing where the next sentence is coming from.

White Wing with Hot Dogs Lakefront 044_1

White-Wing 4/4/12

Fall park visitors

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Lisa Rest

Crow flying through Daley Bicentennial Plaza

I’ve been looking for sparrows, but the crows distract me and I forget to ask them to help me find migrants. I’m sure they’re capable of leading me to visitors. Haven’t they done it before?

White-Throated Sparrows, Lurie Garden

I did eventually find a few sparrows who chose to ignore me long enough to take their pictures…

White-Crowned Sparrow

and the crows hammed it up too.

Crow landing for a peanut.

Crow devotion.

The gardeners were out early yesterday morning and that might have had something to do with the sparrows not being very visible. When I worked at a different location I walked through the park every morning on my way in and regularly had flocks of sparrows covering the lawns. I must have picked the wrong day to get up an hour early.

Four days ago on my lunch hour I saw a Black-Throated Blue Warbler trying to pass himself off as a Junco, foraging in the gutter by one of the tennis courts. I didn’t have my camera, of course.

Dark-Eyed Junco

But today I found him again, in the same general area, although the light wasn’t as good. He must be waiting for a cold front to ride to his next stop. Maybe I’ll see him again before he leaves, this warm spell will continue for a few more days.

Black-Throated Blue Daley Bicentennial 048_1

Black-Throated Blue Warbler

Baby birds beg in key with music

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Lisa Rest

Little's parents allopreening, or maybe how it all started...

Recording of “Little” begging in key with Mozart

Before hatchlings, nestlings and fledglings start talking (calling) or singing (generally, if they’re males), their only vocalization is to beg for food. This starts immediately upon hatching as a faint whimper, but builds to crescendos as the bird grows.

Attached is a brief recording of the only Spice Finch child produced in my house, begging for food. I named her “Little,” not knowing whether she would turn out to be a boy or a girl. Those strong little musical “peeps” you hear belonged to Little. As for the Mozart, I was trying to learn the Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, the one with the Elvira Madigan theme for the adagio, after hearing Stephen Hough play it so wonderfully with the Chicago Symphony. I didn’t have an orchestra to play with, unfortunately, only a recording of a nameless orchestra that was at its own tempo and, because I could not hear the canned orchestra over the piano unless I drowned out the birds, I gave up eventually. If I ever attempt this again, I will have to write my own cadenzas because the ones that come with the sheet music are dreadful, sounding more like Schumann than Mozart.

Long before she fledged, Little fell out of the nest onto the floor. I picked her up and put her back, urging her parents to feed her. At that time she was no more than pencil eraser. I don’t know what made her parents listen to me but they continued to feed her and she fledged, however awkwardly.

Parent with Little

Although I decided somewhere along the line that she was female, she didn’t live long enough for me to really find out. It wasn’t until she stopped begging and started getting around on her own that I realized she was physically impaired. She was missing her right foot, so whenever she landed it was difficult for her to sit without leaning over. It occurred to me this might have been why her parents kicked her out of the nest. They begrudgingly took over parenting of Little and she lived longer, perhaps, than she should have. But I think what did her in was her inability to fit in with all the adults. If she’d had siblings she might have had a better life, at least for a while, but I think she died of a broken heart. Once her parents stopped feeding her, they ignored her totally.

Little, first fledged

Goldbird Variations

Why Birds Sing in Key with Music, or how I finally put perfect pitch to use.

Category Archives: bird love