A Bird in Need

I was taking a run down Dean’s Fork, with the ulterior motive of checking a bluebird box at my friend Harvey’s man-cabin. In the spring of 2017, they’d put up a decorative box on a little post, never thinking anything might use it, when a bluebird pair decided it was just the thing and started hauling grass into it. That would have been OK, but the box was only about two feet off the ground, and the design of the box couldn't be worse.

 

Cute, yes, but there's nothing right about this box where bluebirds are concerned, except that the entry hole is 1 1/2". The A-frame roofline is nothing but wasted space; it's longer than it is tall; the hole's too close to the floor; there are no ventilation holes, and worst of all it can't be opened for checking or cleaning. I do love the hand-painted propane tank. But the box has got to go.

Last year, when Harvey told me he had bluebirds in the box, I scrambled to get him a pole and predator baffle setup so the decorative box wouldn’t become a coon and snake feeder. I mounted the box with nest on the baffled pole. The bluebirds weren’t happy about the change in height, and there were some worrisome hours while they scolded and refused to approach the box, but they eventually went back to finish incubating, and three healthy bluebirds fledged last summer.

I had meant to replace the decorative box with a real one over the winter, but time got away from me, as it loves to do. Here it was mid- July, a whole year later, and I knew I needed to check that box. And sure enough, I peeked in the box that July 17 morning and saw that it was occupied. Not only that, but there was a young bluebird chick visible through the entry hole, right up next to the entrance. How weird! I could hear the peeping of multiple chicks, but here was this one, right up by the hole. 

 

Using my iPhone, I shone a light in and gradually grasped what had happened. Way in the back of the box, which is barn shaped and longer than it is tall, was a grass bluebird nest with high walls. Three nestlings were snuggled in the cup. Somehow, this little one had gotten out of the nest cup, and was lying on excess nesting material, all by itself in the front of the box. I poked my finger in and touched the baby, which was begging weakly. It was cool to the touch. Uh-oh. Being out of the nest cup means the baby wasn't being brooded by the female. It could well have been out of the nest all night.  This baby was in trouble, and fading fast away from the warmth of its siblings.

I went and fetched a long stick, blunted the end of it, and tried to push the baby farther back into the box, and up over the high rim of the nest to join its siblings. No dice. I couldn’t push the little blob with one stick. It was like pushing soup with a fork. I fetched another and tried to use the two sticks as a sort of tongs, but that didn’t work either. It was like trying to do laparoscopic surgery with sticks. The more I struggled to move it, the more I realized that this baby couldn't have gotten out of the nest cup under its own steam. It was only five days old. It looked to me as though the female bluebird had thrown the baby out of the nest, but it was a little too big for her to get it out of the hole. 

Lest you be shocked, I have come to believe this culling behavior goes on in lots of bird nests. A bird decides that one of its offspring ain't right, and they just get rid of it, carry it out like so much garbage. People are always talking about mother birds "kicking a baby out of the nest." I never used to believe that would happen, but the baby birds that wind up on the ground are so often seriously compromised that I've revised my thinking.  I have come to believe that part of what makes avian rehab such a challenge is that in many cases we are dealing with birds that haven't fallen to the ground--they've been tossed. For a reason. And sometimes we find out what it is after we've taken them in. Or we never figure it out, because they up and die on us. We blame ourselves, but maybe the cards were stacked from the start. Geesh. Songbird rehab is hard enough without blaming ourselves for something that isn't our fault. Rehabbers take note.

In the end,  I couldn't get the baby back in its nest, and I had a strong feeling the female would just boot it out again if I did.

Nor could I leave the baby there, cold, not getting brooded and probably not getting fed, either. I decided to take it home with me, see what was going on with it, feed it and warm it, and try to foster it into another brood in one of my "real" bluebird boxes. One that can be opened by the well-meaning, meddlesome landlord. The one whose heart gets in the way of what Nature intends.

 Lord, it was skinny and starved and cold. I put it in my decolletage, such as it is, for the ride home, and amused myself by walking up to Phoebe, and letting her figure out where the incessant peeping was coming from. There is a video, but I'm not posting it. Ha!

While I was mixing up some Mazuri Nestling Formula, we got out our primary Baby Bird reference, to see how old it was. Yep. Five days. But so much skinnier than the bluebird I'd painted in 2002. Food. Warmth. Stat!

our foundling, on Page 27 of Baby Birds: An Artist Looks Into the Nest.

We rigged up a little cooler with a bottle of hot water and a strawberry box lined with tissues. I fed that nestling until it stopped begging, and then it begged some more. Poor wee thing.  

Phoebe has inherited my keen sense for when a wild thing just ain't right. As glad as she was to have a wee thing to care for, she looked at me solemnly. This baby was jittery, restless, hyperactive; it begged even when it was full. I wondered if there was something more wrong with it than just starvation. But we knew we had to give it the best chance possible.

That best chance would be to slip it into one of our boxes with young nearly the same age. That's the beauty of having 25 boxes up and running, most of them occupied. If something goes awry, or you get an orphan, there's usually a host family you can press into service to care for it. 

First, though, we had to feed that child UP. We fed it every 20 minutes or so, all day long, until it was as strong and well-hydrated as it was going to get. By evening, we figured it was as ready as it was going to get. It was time to put it in the far more expert care of bluebirds.

As we walked out to the far meadow box, Phoebe, who'd been checking boxes with me, warned, "Those babies are going to be so much bigger than this one. They're way too old." 

I answered, "By the calendar, they're six days old. This one's five. That's an acceptable span. And besides, it's our only option, short of prying the roof off that decorative box and dropping the baby back in the same nest. Only to have the female kick it out again."

When I pulled out the nest, and Phoebe carefully placed the jittery little thing in with its new foster siblings, something magical happened. It stopped trembling, fidgeting, moving. It lay down as quiet as a mouse, basking in the warmth and scent and feel of other hot-skinned babies pressed up against it. It was a beautiful thing to see. 

"Imagine going through all that without being able to see a thing," Phoebs observed. For its eyes were still sealed shut, though its foster siblings were beginning to peek through slowly-opening slits.

                 It can't see, but it can hear and feel, and if it knows nothing else, it knows it's home now.
 

 

As we turned to head back to the house, I was struck by the beauty of my daughter, in the cobbled-together outfit she'd chosen for the expotition: sports bra, skirt, and Hunter boots. She looked to me like a fairy warrior from Narnia, and the sky played along.

A half-moon sailed serenely over the fiesta of colors.

We scurried up the tower stairs to watch a sky gone wild. And to think about the perfect twist of fate that had sent me down Dean's Fork and peeking in a nestbox, just when a baby bluebird needed help most.

We'll leave it here, safe in a nestbox on Indigo Hill on the night of July 17. Of course, the story continues...

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From 30,000 Feet

It was a day. I’d just had my third root canal since March 24, when I had my first on Molar 19. The second, on Molar 20, followed March 29. Those two teeth were crowned April 14, and that was unexpectedly delight-free, as well. Now it was May 10, and I was in for my fourth multi-hour session in The Chair, and on this beautiful balmy afternoon I slunk into Jim Murrin’s office like a yaller street dog, my heretofore cheery mien dissolved. I was thoroughly done with numbing and needles and pain, with shots of epinephrine (or whatever it is that numbs my jaw and makes my heart race) and the wasp-sting and giant bumblebee drone of drills inside my head. I was done with latex mouth dams and fighting back the sudden panic that I couldn’t swallow, cough or breathe. I was almost ready to cry for the gas of oblivion, but pride held me back. Not sure who I’m trying to impress any more, but there it is.

I don’t have bad teeth. I have great big, beautiful teeth, and I love them. This is not their fault. The problem is that my cavities were treated in the late 1960’s, when, as Jim explained, the conventional wisdom (or dumbness) was to carve out a whole lotta tooth around every cavity, and fill that great hole with silver. There. All done. Fixed it. This weakens the tooth structure, and eventually what’s left of the tooth is going to dry out and crack around those gigantic silver fillings. Eventually, apparently, is in the spring of one’s 57^th year.  As I understand it, eventually comes quickly if you grind your teeth in your sleep, eat kettle corn, muesli with dried apricot bombs, or almonds, to name just a few of my favorite things that have brought such joy and drained my bank account.

I find myself thinking about primitive dentistry. About cavemen, and what happened when their teeth cracked. Which they must have, given that there was the inevitable pebble in the roots, fruit or flesh. Dental pain is intractable and life-altering. What did they do when it struck?? They didn’t wait in a little anteroom full of alluring magazines to be put out of their pain. They didn’t have pliers or anything resembling them. How on God’s green earth did they pull each other’s teeth? Bash them out with rock and ice skates, Castaway style? I shudder to think of them suffering, perhaps for years. And I feel lucky that I, in my figurative silk suit, can go to Dr. Murrin and say "Please put me out of pain." I’ll sit still as I can. When you see my thumbs twiddling, or my feet describing little circles, you’re hitting pay dirt.

This array of magazines in the waiting room definitely helped, for it speaks volumes. Thank you, sweet Ida, for leading me here to this magical endopaintist, this paintodontist, who loves plein air, cityscapes, mountains, beaches, light, music, birds and my books, too. Who calls as I’m making the 2 ½ hour drive home to make sure I’m OK. I’m sure it was your doing that guided me here. What did DOD know of endodontists? I can recall my dad going to the dentist maybe three times in my youth. It was Ida who flossed twice a day, bought us all electric toothbrushes (with cords!) and spent far too many of her mornings in the chair at the dental school in downtown Richmond, returning silent and shell-shocked. She knew from tough dental work.

Close-up of central issue. This is an article about Jim Murrin's alter ego as a plein air painter. See his work at http://www.jimmurrinart.com

 Dad had enormous teeth in a robust jaw, which he passed on to me. He’d throw his head back and bare his molars so we could see all that gold. We liked to say that he could chew soup. And he did! We’d laugh to hear his choppers clop-clopping on Mom’s fresh tomato soup, islands of Longhorn cheddar melting in it, a to-die-for summer treat. Clop, clop, clop. When he and Ida were first married she made him a pecan pie, which is kind of like making a peanut butter and honey sammitch for a 200-pound black bear. She took off a little piece off the pie and offered it to Dale. And he bit down on it and by accident her thumb, too, and she said she was sure he’d bitten it clean off. She never hand-fed that man again.

And now I’m remembering Dad slicing things, summer sausage or cheese or apples, and offering bits to us on the tip of his pocket knife, which was always well-sharpened and likely never truly washed. He’d stick it into the dirt to clean it. Dirt, he liked to say, is an excellent cleanser. To him I likely owe my healthy stable of antibodies. I loved the little thrill of danger I felt when I picked a treat with a delicate bite off the end of that knife. That’s probably how the ancestral Zickefooses fed each other, no fingers in the way. I’m wondering where my first pocketknife is now, the one with sides made of furrowed antler, and a wolf-head insignia in the silver base. Dad gave it to me, and I’d give the world to pry it open again, swivel the blade between thumb and forefinger and send it spinning into a perfect stuck landing in the lawn, the way he showed me to do.

E.L. Doctorow said, “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” Lately, I sit down to write about, for instance, the beauty of West Virginia in a rainy spring (my last post, which turned out to be about teeth) or garlic mustard (this post, which turned out to be about teeth), and what I get is teeth. With sprinklings of mortality, and Ida and Dale. I write about what’s on my mind, I guess. My son, once a nearly-spherical babe with white duck fuzz hair, has passed 6’, spends time building muscle, drawing amazing characters, fussing with his perfect ‘do, and driving himself to school. My daughter lives in Maine, is coming home for a couple of weeks this spring, and then spending the summer working at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. My much-too-beloved dog is growing old before my eyes. And look! so am I. What do you know.

 I don’t mean to sound forlorn, self-pitying, creaky or any of that, because I’m not. I’m riding this fresh and twisty bronco with everything I’ve got, and enjoying it immensely (well, all but the…you know). I’ve almost completely missed spring migration in Ohio; Chet and I haven’t had time for a good run since books started arriving in late March; but I’ve got a new book out, it’s got hard covers and gatefold pages and it weighs 3 ½ pounds! I’ve sold a pack of them, and people seem to like it. I get to zip around giving talks and meeting people, smiling and signing it. I’ve seen spring come on in Massachusetts and West Virginia and I’ve caught snippets of Ohio’s oriole, tanagers and bobolinks out the car windows as I flit around. In the one or two days at a time that I’m home, I plant and weed, piling straw around the tender peppers and tomatoes, and promise my gardens I’ll be back in late May. The house looks like several suitcase bombs went off in it—Bill’s traveling even more than I. I care, but not enough to do anything more than unpack, wash it all, and pack it up for the next trip. Thank God Liam can drive now, and is giving his rapidly-growing knees a rest from track this spring, because his far-flung parents would have missed every meet.

Me and Neka Roundy, Great Salt Lake Bird Festival mastermind and gracious host. Taken this morning, May 12. 2016

 I’m headed to Utah now to see what’s flying through there, take some field trips and give a couple of talks at the Great Salt Lake Bird Festival. I’ve shipped 30 copies of Baby Birds out here, and I hope hard I sell them all.  Being strapped into a small blue and gray seat is the only time I get to write these days. In fact, I just now yanked my laptop screen back from disaster, courtesy of the guy in front of me who, two hours into the flight to Denver, suddenly and swiftly drove his seatback into my space. Gotta love it. Yeah, I love it; love 35 minutes standing sock-footed in TSA processing, love the 36-carb pack of blueberry cookies that are my breakfast; love boarding position C-25 on a Southwest flight, which sent me to the why-me seat hard up against the restrooms, not breathing deeply. It’s all so glamorous, and I remind myself that it’s the life I asked for. But I treasure the time to buckle myself in, flick on the headlights, grab the wheel, and see where we wind up going.

Salt Lake City from Ensign Peak

I realized with an inordinate amount of glee that these pincushiony things are the seedpods of itty bitty alpine geraniums--the cranes' bills. Not an inch high, hugging the rocky slopes of Ensign Peak. Whoa!!

Not in Ohio anymore. Here be Lazuli bunting, black-headed grosbeak, vesper sparrow, ravens, magpies!!

"Baby Birds" Comes to Roost

One of four major shipment waves, executed since March 23. This was the biggest one, fer sure.
The right-hand pile is all doubles, from people who trusted they'd like the book enough to buy one as a gift! There have even been triplets, quadruplets and a few quints! And I'm going to hand-deliver a DEXtuplet set to Cambridge MA in a couple of days! Hodge wins the pickle!

I knew it would be big. I even figured it would eat about a month of my spring. And that was fine with me. But your response to the "Shop Local!" plea still exceeded expectations. My right shoulder keeps telling me so. By the time I learned to stop awkwardly skewing my right arm as I folded and taped the boxes, it was already bunged up. I was happy to get out of it without screwing up my lower back, which I did with the Fantasy Flock Jigsaw Puzzle Shipping Event. Which also exceeded expectations. 

This is All Good, as the airheads say. I know YOU know you could get my books a lot cheaper elsewhere. And I appreciate your buying from me very much. It's made a lot of things possible for us this spring. 

The whole venture has opened out beautifully, like Creole Lady does, day after gorgeous spring day. 

Just after sunrise--I love to catch her like this!

Per Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's request, we held all the books until a day before the official release date, which was April 12. I started processing orders when I finally had books delivered on March 23. It took me very nearly until April 11 to get them all signed, packed and shipped. As I would finish a wave of orders, I'd pack my car full and drive them down to Lower Salem. 

I don't lose sight of the fact that, when I'm all done with a wave of shipping, I then dump it at Miss Cynni's doorstep at the Lower Salem Post Office. And it becomes her thing to lift, sort and ship.

I try to soften the blow for both of us by taking Chet Baker along. I think it helps.

He's not your average customer. But Miss Cynni sees lots of above-average folks in her 4 hour day.



Chet Baker, however, is the only one who gets to stand on the counter.


And get kisses and a special all-natural cheezy bikkit (or three).

The books piled up in the little post office, and Cynni worked on them as she had time.

I'm afraid we made a mess of the place. There are books everywhere--under tables, and the first wave is stashed in the hall at the back of the room, so this isn't even all of them! All I can say is WOW. And THANK YOU. And look at that smile, despite it all. But who wouldn't be smiling, holding The Bacon, Hisself? If you click on the photo you can see he is doing a blep wif his tongue. Cynni came in on Saturday and Sunday, April 9 and 10, to sort and finish metering this enormous shipment. Her husband Marty came in with her, because he didn't want her picking up those boxes, which weigh anywhere from 4 to more than 20 pounds each. I am going to take the liberty of pasting a Facebook post Cynni made, because it says volumes.




And before any postal employees start wondering how I'm getting paid to work on a Sunday, I'm not. This was done on my time because I want to provide great customer service to my customers! It's not about the money for me but to keep my customers happy and keep them coming back. I love my little 4 hr office and all my customers. And for the record, since I am a 4 hr office, I don't have the title of postmistress, I am a PSE, Postal Support Employee and I love my job.

The next time you're tempted to take a swipe at the U.S. Postal Service, remember Miss Cynni, and all the terrific people out there who in many ways big and small make our everyday lives and businesses possible.



Creole Lady, the same blossom at 11 AM. Boom!



How the Post Office looked Sunday afternoon. They got'r'dun. Photo by Cynni Francis



Monday morning,  April 11, loaded into the truck for Columbus (right?) and thence to YOU, all over the country!
Photo by Cynni Francis

To be delivered to Lynne at the soothing side of Hasty Brook,  her refuge and inspiration in Minnesota

To Kim in Free Union, her home in Virginia (note orchid!)

To Kate and her sweet dog Radio, also in my home state of Virginia

Looking a bit battered, but with contents pristine, to Gail in Florida

To Anne in Bowling Green :)

to Janet in Greenback, Tennessee

To Judy, on a peaceful porch, also in Tennessee

and to Jayne in Ringgold, Georgia! That's what a SQUEE looks like!

My heart is overflowing. Full, spilling over, eyes too. Dammit, I have stuff to do!! Y'all stop!

Creole Lady at 1 pm.

It doesn't get any better than that, to be able to see this book land with a thump on the tables of beloved friends all over the country. And we have Miss Cynni and Marty to thank for that. 

 As if it all weren't sweet enough, Cynni finally had time to start reading the book I gave her in wholly inadequate thanks for her extra sweat and time. She started with the Acknowledgements, where I mention a woman named Gwen who, with her adorable young daughter, brought me five chimney swifts that had fallen down their chimney.  With them, I had five more absolutely beautiful models to draw.

                                 Gwen turns out to be Cynni's sister in law, Marty's sister.
Had I not thanked her in the Acknowledgements, Cynni and Marty never would have known that.

Oh, there's magic in simply saying thank you. The more you say it, the more magic you get.

5 pm. Dayum, girl! You aren't getting older. You're getting better!

Having said Thank You to all of you who have bought my new book, please know that this post is not a plea for more orders. I will be indisposed from now until May 2, traveling, speaking and signing books in Massachusetts, with one foray into New Hampshire. Details are in the left sidebar, "Julie In the Flesh."

For those on mobile cellular telephones,  who can't see the blog sidebar, you can find details here:

http://www.juliezickefoose.com/home/meetjulie.php

My talks kick off with Harvard Museum of Natural History on Saturday, April 23.
 I'm at Gibson's Bookstore in Concord NH April 25.
Mt. Auburn Cemetery April 26.
Fruitlands in Harvard MA April 27.
Drumlin Farm in Lincoln MA April 28.
And it all wraps up with a show of the ORIGINAL ART for Baby Birds on Saturday, April 30 at the Museum of American Bird Art in Canton MA.

Come see me, Northeasterners! I am locked, loaded and ready to talk!

So if you're moved to order copies for Mother's Day, just know that I will do my very best to get them shipped in the three days I will be home, and before I take off again for the New River Birding Festival on May 5, and the Great Salt Lake Birding Festival May 13. No rest for the wicked or the weary in April and May. 

"Baby Birds: An Artist Looks Into the Nest" Has Landed!

I was playing bakketball with Phoebe and Liam and her friends from her college. It was sunny yesterday and I was barking because that's how you play bakketball. You stand over the ball and bark bark bark bark until the person is afraid to touch the ball. You bark like a slobbering wolf. Then you quickly try to pop the bakketball before they take it away from you.

You rasp your teef against it very hard and quickly while they scream and dither.

Then the big brown truck rolled up the driveway and everything fell to pieces. Mether got her overexcited smell and started running around in circles. 

When the brown man opened up the back of the truck it was full of boxes. All the ones with orange stickers were for her.

I was amazed. So many boxes. And not a bikkit anywhere. 

They are not thinking about me at all. 

Book book book book careful don't drop it ooh look how many bla bla bla bla bla

I did not hear "bikkit" even once.

I inspected the cabin. No bikkits. What is wrong with this brown man?

I sent Mether a subliminal message about bikkits. Here is what it said: 

"Get me a bikkit. Because the brown man forgot."

Mether said the orange sticker on the box says she can take orders now, but she cannot send the books out until about April 5 . Media Mail takes about a week, and the books aren't supposed to arrive until April 12. She says that is the "release date" for the book, everywhere.

Notice he does not have a treat in his hand.

This is the first shipment of Mether's new book. The tire went flat.

They couldn't pull the cart at all.

Mether got her favorite VolunTeens to help unload the books and carry them into the studio. That is Zach and Elizabeth and Phoebe. Liam was at school. She fed them some nice food for pay.

The VolunTeens carried the books through a little hallway.

I stood in the middle of the hall blocking the way and finally lay down so they would have to step over me.

It was the least I could do.

When they finally got all 180 books carried in I was exhausted.

Holding up progress is a lot of work.

You can order your copy of Baby Birds by clicking the new button in the right sidebar of the blog. 

The order form gets all your contact information in one place. It also gives you a box where you can ask Mether to sign the book special for someone. PayPal is the quickest and easiest payment option. Don't be put off by the word "donation." Your "donation" is 

 the price of your book(s) plus shipping. 

If you'd prefer to make out a check to Julie Zickefoose, the order form will give you her mailing address. When she gets your check she will sign and send your book. If you forget to send the check she won't send anything.

If you want more books than the order form allows, just write Mether a note in the comment box on the order form and she will answer you by email with a quote. Then she will scramble around for a bigger box.

Indigo buntings

One thing you should know about this book is it is an AMAZING deal. $28 for a full color, 3 1/2 pound book with gatefold plates and more than 400 paintings? I do not know how Houghton Mifflin Harcourt keeps the price that low. I truly don't. Mether is over the moon about this beautiful book.


Also, it is probably the ultimate Mother's Day gift. Because it's all about babies and how they grow and thrive. And what mother doesn't love to see that?

All carping about bikkits aside, thank you very much for your support. 

You're going to love this great big beautiful book of baby birds!

Love, Chet Baker

PS: Let Mether know in the Comments box if you'd like my pawdypadprint in your book.