Tag: birds

Nestled Hope: The Tale of a Balcony Robin by Judith Morrison

by Guest, posted in Wildlife

Guest post by Judith Morrison

It was the beginning of summer during one of our scheduled evening phone calls, when my mother first mentioned a robin was building a nest in her light fixture on the balcony.

“But I swept away the twigs the bird had started collecting,” she said. “Some of the twigs are still on the balcony floor. What a mess!” She’d have to go out and finish the sweeping later.

The following evening while on the phone with her, after going over all the horrible news events of the day, she told me that the robin came back. “The robin started building her nest in the same fixture. She’s out there now.”

“Is she using the twigs that were on the balcony floor?” I asked.

“No,” Mom said. “She’s using new material. You should see what she’s collected this time. There’s ribbon in various colors, string, pieces of what looks like hay. This time I’m going to let her build her nest,” Mom said. “I don’t have the heart to take it down.”

The robin’s persistence and dedication had paid off. “She’s a smart bird,” Mom said. I agree with her. “My balcony light fixture is the perfect spot for a nest. It’s covered to protect from the wind and rain. The light can provide warmth, and she’s away from prey. It’s perfect for a nest,” Mom added.

In the following days, my mom reported back on how the bird was progressing with nest-building. “She works so hard,” Mom said. “She doesn’t seem to leave her nest for more than 10 minutes at a time. And this nest, you should see it. It’s so tightly woven and secured around my light fixture.”

I started looking forward to the nightly robin nest-building updates. I especially appreciated it after going over all the terrible news events of the day. I noticed how my local news channel always ended their broadcast with a feel-good animal story. We’d end our conversation on a light note.

I started noticing the birds in my neighborhood: robins, woodpeckers, sparrows, magpies, and osprey. Was it my imagination, or were there more birds than usual in the neighborhood this summer? Or was I more aware of the birds because of the robin?

Either way, I looked at the robin and the other birds as a sign of hope. This was especially important because we’re in a time that feels hopeless in a lot of ways—so any sign of hope is good. I found myself wishing a bird would build a nest at my house. I had a perfect, protected light fixture on my front terrace. I’d welcome a bird who wanted to build a bird’s nest.

“Neighbors are stopping below my balcony to admire the robin’s nest,” my mom said. “They’ve been positive, except for Buddy, who doesn’t approve.”

As the hot and humid days of summer went on, my mom described the robin’s routine in more detail. “She sits on her nest all day. She seems to briefly fly away at night for no more than

10 minutes, to get food. Another robin—the father, I guess—sits perched on the balcony railing now and then.”

“But only now and then,” she repeated. “Not like my robin, who is perched on her nest all the time. I check on her every morning first thing while brewing my coffee. I quietly open the balcony door so as not to disturb her. The thing is, I don’t go on the balcony and don’t use it, as I feel I’m disturbing her. It’s her balcony now. Her home.”

The following week, my husband and I went to visit Mom. It was her birthday, so we brought lemon cake. I made tea and watched my husband sprinkle powdered sugar on the lemon cake and then cut it into three pieces.

“I don’t want any. I just ate lunch,” Mom said.

“Well, you can have your piece later,” I said.

I noticed my mother didn’t seem impressed or to be in the mood for the lemon cake, or perhaps for a visit at all. There was a lull in the conversation. It was a good time to see the robin.

“Open the door quietly,” Mom said.

I opened the balcony door and turned my head to the right, and there the robin was in all her splendour. She was big and plump, and very close. I could have touched her. The up-close view came as a shock.

“Wow,” I said. “You really are living with a bird!”

We sat in the living room and had tea and talked about birds, animals, and nature. I admire how my mom walks every day at 87 years old, as long as she isn’t in too much pain from her arthritis. We went from birds to talking about the book on her coffee table, which was about Canadian wolves.

“I’m done with it. Take it back,” she said to my husband, who had lent her the book. “Make sure there are none of my bookmarks still in it.”

Mom started to slowly get up, and so we followed her lead. We got up to collect the teacups and leave. It seemed that was enough of a visit today, and she wanted to get back to her routine… to her afternoon walk, early dinner, and quiet time—just her and the bird.

 “You can take the lemon cake back, too,” she added.

“Well, we’ll leave you your piece,” I said. With that, we left. I knew she wanted to go for a walk while it was still light out, and we were holding her up. We said our goodbyes.

Not too many days after our birthday visit, Mom said she saw baby robins. “There are two baby robins in the nest. Probably more. And one flew. I thought he was going to land on the ground, but he didn’t. He went into a tree and disappeared.”

Not many days after that, the mother and babies were both gone. Those birds, who had occupied so many evening phone conversations, were gone. The nest was empty. I was glad I was able to get such an up-close look when I did.

“I miss her. I miss hearing the chirping in the morning,” Mom said. “She was company.”

And I also missed her. I missed hearing about her and the easy conversation with my mother around her.

“But when I was sure she wasn’t coming back, I took down the nest,” Mom said a few weeks later when the subject of the robin came up.

Mom went on to describe the intricate cloth the robin had tightly woven to make her nest. My mother and I had empty nest syndrome. Through a Google search, though, I read that the robins may come back to their old nesting site next year and make a new nest. By now, during the late summer phone calls, there was a chill in the air. Autumn was on its way.

“I hope the robin returns,” Mom said.

“I hope she returns, too,” I replied.

“I guess we’ll have to wait until next summer to see,” she said.

Judith Morrison enjoys writing personal essays on travel, fashion, animals and lifestyle. She has been published in The Globe and Mail, Christian Science Monitor, and on CBC radio. Her most recent essays have appeared in Adventuress Travel Magazine, lolcomedy.com, and Dogs Today Magazine. Her blog for women, “Fun and Pampering in YYC,” is about things to do and places to go in her hometown of Calgary, Alberta.

Judith has enjoyed teaching ESL to students at various levels and with diverse backgrounds throughout her teaching career. She also likes traveling, especially in Turkey and Mexico, journal writing, and taking long walks with Samson, the Border Collie mix, and Zoey, the labradoodle.

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These Cockatiels Found Their Paradise

by Laura Lee Cascada, posted in Companions, Rescue

It took a lot of courage to let them go. But it was easy to set them free. And if I ever doubt that it was the right thing to do, I just whisper to myself these words of the late, great Maya Angelou: “The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still, and his tune is heard on the distant hill, for the caged bird sings of freedom.”

Her words, a metaphoric reflection on oppression, remind me that we all seek it–that elusive freedom–and few truly attain it. Yet, as Ms. Angelou once said, “The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.”

*

I was about 12 years old when a pair of cockatiels fell into my home. They’d been used as some sort of children’s educational act, but once their mysticism had faded, they had been relegated to a cage and left to their own devices.

So he, a gregarious grey and white bird with a permanent smirk deceptively etched into his feathered face, had taken to grooming her… And grooming her… And grooming her. Endlessly–until she, once a sleek white-feathered maiden, had morphed into more of a turkey, bald-headed but still irresistibly adorable.

They were soul mates, serenading one another under the sunrise every morning and huddling together for bed under the moonlight.

Then, suddenly, she was gone. Teflon, we concluded–the coating on the pan that cooked our pancakes every morning. A stray whiff of the fumes must have killed her. We hadn’t known it was poison. We were devastated.

He was devastated. He sang for her, day in and day out. A sad, shrill, eternal song–an empty song.

We had to do something, so we did what seemed logical: We drove to the pet store, and we bought another: a lone female, who had already been discarded once and returned to the store. Grey, fiery, full of sass–she was mean and miserable.

Had we known then that almost a third of wild parrot species are classified as threatened because of habitat destruction and capture for the pet trade, according to the Animal Welfare Institute, perhaps we would have done it differently. Had we known that breeders often mass-produce birds in filthy, crowded conditions much like puppy mills, perhaps we would have done it differently. Had we realized that these birds are never truly domesticated and will always be wild animals–born to fly free–yes, we just might have done it differently.

From day one, she hissed. She wanted very little to do with us. But he was a different story.

His eyes shone once more, and his song became bright again. Slowly but surely, her walls crumbled. She began to nestle up to him. And over the years, they became completely inseparable, each shining a light into the darkness that had overtaken both of their souls in the aftermath of abandonment.

But he proved that some habits die hard, as he didn’t delay in grooming her in the same way as her predecessor, replacing her shiny grey plumage with a bare pink skull.

I went to college, and I came home. And then I left again, flying off into the adult world. But they stayed. And upon my return, I always was greeted by his sweet song and that silly smile and reminded of her elegant aloofness.

The day came when it was time for my parents to make their ultimate move: to the Big Island of Hawaii. En route, tragedy struck when their beloved cockatoo, Lilah, passed away after a series of unforgivable oversights by the airline, airports, and transport company that resulted in him being denied water and food for hours on end. The guilt and loss for my family were crushing and raw. And in those moments, it was quite clear that Willie and Lucy, the bonded cockatiel pair, were not destined to follow my parents to paradise.

Back in Virginia, my wife and I had temporarily taken in the duo, alongside our menagerie of dogs, rabbits, fish, and a potbellied pig. But flight was limited in their small room, and for them, life had to be about much more than fleeting moments of flapping back and forth between the ceiling fan and their cage.

“A free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wing in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky,” wrote Maya Angelou.

We had known about the nearby Project Perry, also referred to as the Central Virginia Parrot Sanctuary and supported by game show host Bob Barker, for a while. With a mission to “provide exceptional natural environments for [its] residents where they can enjoy the enrichment of flight and the togetherness of flock with excellent care provided by a dedicated team of staff and volunteers,” the sanctuary is working to tackle the massive, growing problem of unwanted captive wild birds–often rejected for being too loud, too unruly, too disruptive–essentially, too wild.

Fortunately, Willie and Lucy were accepted into the sanctuary’s selective “Lifetime of Care” program, in which they could live out the rest of their days in a beautiful aviary with dozens of companion cockatiels and parakeets and surrounded by lush greenery. And while they would not be leaving my family in spirit–we’d continue to provide financial support for their care and be able to visit whenever we liked–their physical absence still pained me.

I wept in the silence after their songs had stopped.

Yes, it took strength to leave them there, but from the moment they climbed out of the carrier and took off in flight, I knew it was where they belonged–the closest habitat to their native Australia they’d ever reach.

I continued to visit when I could, and in the months of intermission, regular text updates and photos from sanctuary founder Matt Smith never failed to light up long, dreary days and weeks. Despite all the new fish in the sea, Willie and Lucy remained a bonded pair, never venturing far from one another.

On my visits, I noticed that they stopped flying down to greet me. They often sat together, perched near the roof of the aviary, surveying their surroundings. But still, he sang that familiar song, and through it I heard peace.

It stung, but I realized they didn’t need me–and that recognition was the biggest gift I could have given them. They were free, and they thrived.

Very recently, Matt solemnly notified me that Lucy had passed away peacefully in his hands, warm and comfortable–loved. By my estimates, she would have been more than 20 years old. I sighed, and then I wept–but inside I knew: this was the perfect ending to her story.

Then I began to worry for Willie. Would that desperate song emerge once more, with sorrowful cries into the night?

But my fears were quelled when my phone buzzed and a 10-second video appeared. In it, Willie and another bird, like two schoolkids on the playground, pecked happily together at the seeds around their feet.

“Maybe he’s on a millet-eating date,” read Matt’s accompanying text.

I just laughed, and I knew then that in that aviary, Willie’s soul had finally been set free. In there, he could heal, and he could truly live.

You can help: Exotic birds need you. Head on over to Project Perry’s page to learn how you can support the sanctuary’s life-saving work!