Welcome to the World Tweedy Bird!

   

 My only New Year’s Resolution for 2015 is to use the Monty Python song “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” as my motto.  It seems doable: I live a pretty good life. I have great friends and a decent family. Without becoming too sappy, I’m blessed.

     

     But only three weeks into this shiny New Year, it’s becoming harder every day.  The year started with a literal bang with the shootings at Charlie Hebdo. No matter what your opinions of the cartoons, or the taste -or lack thereof- the magazine showed by printing them, nobody should ever die for a cartoon satire. Ever.

     Then, as if not to be left out of the terrorist discussion, Boko Haram stepped up their assaults on innocents in Nigeria. Not to be overly pessimistic, but I’m sure there will be a school shooting  soon. 

     Boy Howdy! What a way to start the year.

     Which is why some of my friends have noticed my recent infatuation, some would say obsession with my canary chick. Staring at a half-ounce of newly-born fluff somehow gives me hope.

     Some background is necessary.  I’ve had canaries since I was a tyke. Usually one at a time, but sometimes more. Only the males sing, and stores always guarantee that the birds are male. Once the bird in question starts laying eggs, it’s a pretty good bet that it’s female. 

     I always wanted a flight cage where the canaries would actually have room to fly, as opposed to the tiny enclosures that pet stores sell, where the best they can do is hop from perch to perch. When I bought a house, I finally had room and I had someone build a five-foot avian habitat which I quickly populated it with canaries. Some turned out to be females, the rest were, as promised, males. 

     Most of the females spent their spare time turning the food dishes into nests.  Once they rip up enough newspaper to line the feeder, they hop in and start laying eggs.

     For the next two weeks the potential mama canary remains in that nest with her butt plastered to the eggs.  After two weeks, she gives up, hops out and I throw out the eggs . In about a week the process starts all over.

     Only once over decades of canary stewardship did a chick hatch, and it didn’t last a day. Apparently that’s not unusual. Canaries are terrible parents.  They are so bad that it astounds me that the species isn’t extinct.

     So when Rusty started sitting on a nest in late December, I had no expectations. Over the years she’s probably laid two dozen useless eggs. And zero chicks.

     On Christmas Day when she hopped off the nest, I reached in to toss out the eggs. But there was something breathing.  It was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen. It was an orange bug the size of my thumbnail. But it was definitely alive.

 

   A little late in the day I started reading up on how to keep the pair healthy. Rusty needed special food since she was eating for two.

     This meant that I had to cook. I don’t cook. I never turn on the oven except to bake turkey loaf for the dogs or heat frozen pizza.  I can’t tell you the last time I used the range.

     Suddenly I was buying eggs and hard boiling them daily. For the canaries. Even though it’s cannibalistic, the yolks are good for the chick and grown birds love them. They also got a daily ration of cooked oatmeal, broccoli, apples and soaked canary seed. A balanced diet.

     Every day I braced to find the chick dead. Instead, every morning I was awakened to the bird peeping while Rusty dutifully fed it. Except for when it was eating, the chick was completely silent.

Intellectually I know that nature works, but to watch it happen is magic. 

     The baby, now dubbed Tweedy Bird, changed enormously from day to day.  One moment it was bald, the next it had puffs of down and later it sported actual pin feathers. 

     After two weeks I moved Rusty and Tweedy into their own space. I‘d read that males occasionally attack fledglings, and I was WAY too emotionally invested in Tweedy for that.

The move was traumatic for all of us, but everyone survived. Okay, I needed a slug of Makers Mark . But then I was fine.

     The next day Tweedy started jumping out of the nest. Sometimes he landed on his feet. Mostly he was like a toddler – the feet moved but the brain had no control.

     Yesterday Rusty decided Tweedy  was weaned. No matter how much he flapped his stubby wings and screamed, she was done.  I suppose if he’s big enough to sleep on the perch at night, he’s big enough to eat on his own. Besides, she’s nesting again.

     My mare is due to foal in the next month or so, but I sent her away to the home for unwed horses.  I wondered if I was doing the right thing, but after the experience with Tweedy, I know I’m right.  Birthing babies is hard.