Bluebirds, Learning to Forage

I've been caring for three orphaned female bluebirds since Sunday, July 7. They were taken in on Day 12 of their short lives by a kind couple, who dedicated a bathroom in their home to the babies' growth and development. I erected the soft nylon Bat Tent in our garage and installed them immediately, and they clearly appreciated the extra room for flight. I appreciated the fact that the tent has a seamless integral floor, which would keep these crafty babies where they belong. They came to me on Day 25, and I made this video on Day 31. From earlier experience with young bluebirds, I found them starting to pick up their own live food at Day 28. According to Mil and Fran, their first foster parents, one of the trio was picking up mealworms even before Day 25.

I'm delighted to be able to present a video, made on my iPhone, of these fledgling bluebirds figuring out how to feed themselves. Well, sort of. One has the idea, and the other two are riding on her coattails.

Day 28. They are wonderfully healthy, active, bright-eyed babies. Staple diet: Purina kitten chow, ground, watered down to a slurry and fed from an EZ Feeder syringe, supplemented with chopped fresh fruit and mealworms.

Note in the video how even the more experienced bird still displays the behavior of gaping at a desirable food item (a crawling mealworm), as if it might magically leap into her mouth. I can't suppress my amusement (well, I rarely suppress amusement, as I think about it) when one of the slow learners snatches the mealworm from her. I find it interesting how a mealworm crawling doesn't quite constitute food, but a mealworm held in tweezers or another bird's bill instantly releases the gotta-have-it grab.

They're getting there. I'm writing this on Day 32, and all three are now capable of picking up their own mealworms. They still want squirts of nestling food from their beloved syringe, but I was able to leave them for three hours on Day 31! Came home to an empty mealworm bowl and only moderately hungry birdlets. After feeding them every hour for a week, dawn to dusk, that was niiiiice. I can taste freedom! and I trust they'll be feeding themselves entirely by the weekend of July 19, when I'm teaching a writing/sketching/creativity workshop at the Highlands Sanctuary, part of the Arc of Appalachia Preserve in south-central Ohio. 

I always forget how much work it is to raise birds. But I never forget how lovely it is to see them grow and thrive.

Phoebe is 17!

It's her birthday. Phoebe's 17th birthday.

And we're without power or phone, having had our traditional Phoebe's Birthday Derecho which has knocked out power for counties around. This time, I have a generator, and I got it started all by myself, plugged in the refrigerator, modem, cellphone and computer, and I'm good to go. Bought the thing after last summer's derecho, which left us without power for nine (count 'em!) days and, while it was at it, smashed our Garden Pod to smithereens. I'm delighted to say that the new Groanhouse survived these 60 mph winds intact; that I had the sense to buy a generator after the last such outage, and We Will Survive.

The last time the power was knocked out by just such a storm on Phoebe's birthday, we had a Haunted Party out here in the silent house with a bunch of screaming girls who loved it so much they come out here at the drop of a hat now. We love those screaming girls. Phoebe has the most awesome friends. 

I won't be able to bake a birthday cake, though. My dopey new oven has electronic ignition, so it needs power to relight every time the flame goes out. Duh, duh, duh. Give me a manually-lit pilot any time. So, since I cannot bake her a cake, I will pay tribute to our most marvelous daughter in words and pictures.

Phoebe's had quite a summer so far. In late June we headed for New England to look at colleges, because she wants to go to college in New England. Who can blame her? They do colleges well there. 

First stop was Bennington in Vermont. Would it be Bennington? Oh yes, oh yes. She loved Bennington, as she knew she would.

Who wouldn't love a college with an old dairy barn as its main office?

Goldilocks walked and wondered. It was all so beautiful.

But then we went to Dartmouth. And she loved Dartmouth even a little more, because it sank in on her that bigger might be better where colleges are concerned.

And then we went to Bowdoin in Brunswick, Maine, and like Goldilocks in the baby bear's bed, she found Bowdoin juuuust right.

Plus, Brunswick has awesome ice cream.

She may be a Polar Bear in the end.

Mama Bear was bemused to see the care with which Goldilocks filled out her admissions questionnaires. She considered each question as if her life depended on giving a good answer. No messing around here. Liam offered ideas and suggestions.

Soon, it was time to go to Maine, to Hog Island, a place full of magic.

There, Phoebe and Liam nominated Toddy from Massachusetts to be their adoptive grandmother, because that's the kind of kids they are.

When we were done in Maine, we swung south to Cambridge. We made her look at superbig, kind of scary, awfully urban Harvard. Even at my old freshman dorm room at the corner of Weld South. No, there as yet is no commemorative plaque. :/

Too big, said Goldilocks. Too noisy. Too many people. Nah.

 Oh, you just wait and see, said Mama Bear. You're going to apply. Oh yes you are. Because you never know. You might just get in. And wouldn't that be a lovely problem to have?

We left Boston and headed for Harvard Mass where my lovely sister Barbara hosted us.

And Phoebe dwarfed her, too...and Barbara's taller than me.

There was some wonderful cousin time with Max and Will, my grandnephews and Barbara's grandchildren, who thought Liam hung the moon. Which he did.

We went to Connecticut where we saw my terrific sister Micky and her family, and visited my mom.
It was bittersweet.

We swung down to Bethlehem PA where we saw Corey and his family after a whole year. We'd all met on Hog Island last June. That was sweet.

We came home from our great odyssey and mowed and weeded and washed clothes and took off again for Pittsburgh, for a Pirates game, which we won! Yay!

Of almost equal interest to me, as a biological anthropology major, was AnthroCon, a convention that happened to be going on in Pittsburgh while we were there. It was composed of people who enjoy dressing up as cartoon animals, who refer to themselves as "furries."

I noticed that there are a LOT of foxes.

 Who were staying at our hotel. Some in full costume; some just wearing ears and tails hanging off their pants.

I never stop learning about Homo sapiens.

We hit Pittsburgh's Strip, which has certainly the world's coolest candy store

and Burgatory, which has awesome milkshakes and burgers

and it hit me that this child has a pretty wonderful life, which has made her a pretty wonderful young woman. She cares for the small and helpless

and she's every bit as good at it as her mama. 

She is kind to animals of all sorts, and they love her right back.

Most of all she is kind to her brother, who worships her. We can see him preparing his heart for her departure, and it's hard for him to let her go. We have one more year with her before that happens, and we mean to make it memorable.

 

What she will become, who can say? When you're good at everything, it's hard to narrow it all down. So don't ask her what she wants to be or do when she grows up. She wants to do it all. All we know is that whatever she ends up doing or being, it will be 

wonderful.

Happy birthday, Mrs. B.

Boston Terriers and Bluebirds

It seemed that my budding friendship with Fran and Mil was meant to be. For when Jeff brought them out to the farm on Sunday morning, they brought the bluebirds, and someone else with them. Someone named Hobo. Hobo's tongue hangs out, but I didn't ask about that, because I figure after eleven years they've long since tired of explaining why. He was a perfectly charming little gent. Mil says he brings Hobo everywhere except "where they sell food."

Hobo is eleven, and he was not at all sure he wanted to consort, canoodle or cavort with the bouncy and insistent Chet Baker, so in Mil's arms he stayed.

Hobo, I just want to smell you all over. Please put your dog down so I can smell him all over, and then show him who is boss. (That's Jeff in the background, smiling at the Tiggerish ridiculousness that is Chet).

  Mil and Fran had brought Hobo along because they said he would want to kiss his baby bluebirds goodbye. 

Which he did. Licked them. No sweeter Boston walks the earth. He made Chet look like some kind of hoodlum. Which he is. Chet's fine with baby birds; he wouldn't hurt them, but as this was going on he was whining and pawing at the outside of the tent, just wanting to get in there and bowl poor little Hobo over. Which wasn't going to happen.

One bluebird sat on Hobo's back for awhile. It was sweet to see. Well, these baby bluebirds would grow up thinking that there are Boston terriers everywhere, I guess.

Chet Baker, who looks like a fullback compared to the more gracile Hobo, ingratiated himself with Fran by leaping up and French-kissing her. She said he reminds her of their first Boston, who was more boisterous than Hobo. Good word, that. Boisterous.

Meanwhile, the baby bluebirds were settling in nicely, investigating their little wading pool, flying circles around the tent, and trying out all the new perches. They're about 25 days old in this photo, still several days from being able to try to pick up their own food. If I remember correctly that happens around Day 28. And then it takes another week or more until they're good at it. I'll continue to hand feed them until they're feeding themselves completely.

I was delighted to find all three are females. This may help give them a smoother release. I raised two orphaned bluebirds in Connecticut years ago. Cobalt was the male, Sapphire the female. Upon releasing them, the resident male bluebird in my yard came and beat the daylights out of Cobalt, driving him from the property. He left Sapphire alone, and she stayed on to be subsidized by my mealworm handouts. I do not think this selective aggression was a coincidence. So I hope that maybe, just maybe, our resident male bluebird will tolerate these three little girls upon their release. I have my fingers crossed. And I'm not going to release them until they're dead ready to be on their own, picking up all their own food.

 It's not perfect, but nothing in avian rehab is really perfect. You do what you must, what you can, and hope for the best. Even from a marsh in Maine. Even when you have a resident pair of bluebirds in your yard who may make life difficult for your orphans. We'll just have to see what happens.

 And outside, Chet Baker was still staring longingly up at Hobo, with a big I-want-that-doggeh-so-badly spitbubble in the corner of his flews. That's my boy.

I cannot believe you photographed me with a spitbubble. Someday I will do the same to you.