A Feathered Tale

Pete and I shared a unique bond.  It began when we both arrived at my very first home on the same day.   Pete, a living feathered gift whom my grandfather had adopted from an ailing friend, crossed the threshold just minutes before I did.  After being born five days earlier, my parents had returned with me, a precious bundle and the final addition to their family of five.  I am told that between Pete and me, we made quite a rumpus.

Hatched a sulphur crested cockatoo, Pete resided in a large, shiny silver cage that hung from the edge of the veranda and overlooked my proud father’s veggie garden.  Amidst the years of watching my father tend that garden each season, from the planting of seeds and seedlings, to the reaping of organic vegetables that made their way keenly to our kitchen and those kitchens of my aunts and grandmother, Pete was firmly immersed within Greek orthodox culture.  Pete had been present at garden weddings at our home, had witnessed the danced ushering in of many New Years with copious amounts of cousins and second cousins, overheard the hunger dramas that went with enduring Lent before Easter, and had even become accustomed to the smell of cigar smoke as it wafted from the living room where my father and uncles played cards with windows open in the summer.  This was Pete’s familial Greek background.

For me, however, Pete embodied the unassuming role of listening friend.  Growing up, I had taken a seat on the white, wrought iron bench beside his cage out the back and chatted to him about how my days had been filled.  He’d heard a lot.  He’d listened as I perfected my three times tables, sat perched as I whined about my big sisters teasing me, and bopped his head as I taught myself song lyrics to the Top 40 hits.  He seemed to digest it all.  Occasionally he’d choose a word from my anecdotes or lamentations and practice it awhile, in typical cockatoo accent that would of course, always leave me giggling.  I found both humour and solace in the way Pete reflected my trivialities of life in Cockatoo.

As one can imagine, Pete learned to imitate the Greek language heard incessantly around the house.  In actual fact he was multi-lingual.  He’d picked up bits of pidgin English communicated between my middle aged parents and me, as well words in standard English, a language I had endeavoured to master in order to blend in as a first generation Australian of Greek heritage at a predominantly Anglo Saxon school.

My relationship with Pete had lasted through childhood and into adolescence.  For me it was a lifetime.  On the morning that Pete didn’t greet me with one of his rhetorical questions, I knew something was wrong.  As I walked slowly toward his cage and saw an empty branch on my approach, I knew I’d missed goodbye.  Laying face-up, Pete’s pure, white plumage cushioned him on the base of his cage.  His eyes were dark and his once iridescent, yellow crest, appeared a shade or two lighter to me.  At fifteen years of age, I raised a hand to my face and wiped away tears that flowed freely.  My mother stood at the door with a pressed, cream tablecloth held over her arm, ready to take him away.

Pete will always be remembered as our loyal, family pet cockatoo that spoke Greek.

Nerina Dunt

Putting the pigeon amongst the cats

Several years ago, while living in Prospect, one of our cats caught a young pigeon, a squab really, probably out for its first flight. The pigeon was in shock, instinctively lying limp, but undamaged apart from some lacerations. I rescued the bird and secured it in an old wire poultry basked and hung it from the studio rafters to see if it might recover. I kept an eye on the bird and provided water and some crushed grain. A few days passed and I realised it was paying close attention to my comings and goings. I thought it time to test the bird's flight within the studio space. It seemed well enough repaired and I decided on making its big release.

I took the bird to a clear piece of yard and attempted to throw it in the air. There was much flapping of wings but the feet clung fast to my fingers. I held the bird with my palms around the wing, and fingers fre,e threw again, but the flight lasted five seconds with the bird flying straight back to my body. I placed it on a tree branch, moved away, and it flew straight back to me. The pigeon wasn't leaving. I suddenly realised that I had become the parent. I had been imprinted on the bird's brain. I also realised that this pigeon had also been imprinted on me. There was a growing emotional tug, a little niggle of concern whenever I was not in the studio. As a parent I now had responsibilities towards this new dependent.

If this pigeon was not going to leave me, my first responsibility was to teach it how to coexist with cats for the cats had not given up a keen interest in retrieving what they saw as their bird. I also had to teach it to forage for food, where to roost and how to wash. Later I also became concerned that there was a lot of flapping but not much flight. There were intergrated lessons that involved broadcasting grain in the garden beds, watching until the cats began their pounce then leaping in to scare both predator and prey, then guiding the bird to a safe roost.

My children were envious of my relationship with the bird and annoyed that it would always choose to fly to me. The flights became longer between perch and hand or head or shoulder. Eventually I would leave the pigeon, now called Pidgey-didge, on a tree branch in the morning, go to work and be greeted at the end of the day with a flight from the perch to my hand. I would often have to fight off the urge to return home during the day as the emotional tug of parenthood exerted its pull. I even speculated it was the bird telepathically calling me....in the same way that budgies can let you know when they are hungry. You have the thought, you check the bowl and, sure enough, it's empty. I believe we totally underestimate the power of the bird brain.

This pattern went on for a couple of weeks. Progressively the whereabouts of the pigeon became less certain when I arrived home. Sometimes it was not there at all but would flap in when I called. One day, standing in the original release site, I was watching him do a fly over on a path that encountered another bird. He suddenly dropped into a tumble, pulled out and flew on in a criss-cross ascent. My heart leaped as I realised Pidgey-didge had finally got this thing he had been flapping away at. He was now enjoying flight.

Several weeks on and Pidge is now an adolescent. He was flying around most of the day, even away most of the day and sometimes overnight. Eventually a week would go by before he would return as if nothing was changed.

One day he was gone and didn't return....not until a year later. He was waiting when I came home from work. He flew down to me then flew back up to a roost on the verandah. He was not alone. He had returned with a mate. I was introduced and they hung around for a couple of days. I made a nesting box....but I missed the point. This was thanks and goodbye.

David Kerr
Prospect

The Story of Peck Peck.

I was getting a lift to get my lunch in the shopping centre at Port Adelaide. (I was working at Tauondi Aboriginal College nearby). Well there was a little yellow bird in the middle of the car park, a canary. He was looking pretty still, but he was perched upright, a flash of yellow in all that grey bitumen. I guess he must have escaped from his cage or something and got lost. He was being swooped and pecked by Noisy Minor birds.

'Stop the car!' I exclaimed to Karen, my workmate, 'Theres a canary on the ground!' 

She let me out.

A 'P' plater came charging up the car-park in his beefy black car. 

'Stop!' I shouted. 'There's a bird!' I held my hand up, to stop him, and I stood in front of his car pointing at the bird with my other hand. He screeched to a stop. Craning over the steering wheel, he nodded at me.  I tore off my tee shirt (I had a tank top underneath) and threw it over the bird. Then I bundled him up and into Karen's car on my lap. We grabbed a roll and we went back to Tauondi. Upstairs in my office we found a cardboard box with some kind of lid. I put him in. I thought he would die. Birds can die of fright, can't they, and he'd been in the blaring sun, on that black bitumen, and it was a hot summer day too and he was probably dehydrated, shocked, and injured. I just though I'd give him a more comfortable death, in the shade, with a bit of my love going in to him. I unwrapped him in the box, and he looked up at me with his little pink beady eyes. I soaked a tissue in water and dripped some of it in to his beak. He gobbled it up. He chirped! He wanted more! I fed him more water. He started flapping and flapped up in to the air and about the office, fluttering down by Tony's desk (my other work mate). 

'Well he's looking a bit chirpier!' Said Karen.

'Here he is!' said Tony, 'Under my feet!' 

I grabbed my tee shirt and when he settled down I tossed it gently over him again.

Later I took him home. My cat, Ling Ling, she didn't mind. She's a bit odd and she just wanted to be his friend. We called him Peck Peck.

Sometimes I would let Peck Peck fly around the house on his own. He flew, round and around. He loved to perch on the curtains, and the tops of picture frames. He loved yellow things. So do I. It's my favourite colour. Sometimes I would put his cage outside, so he could feel the sun, and the shade, and the wind in his feathers. Cecil and Beverly, the two top-knot pigeons who frequent my back yard, they would come to visit and peck around his cage and chat to him. Sometimes I would catch Magpies or Noisy-Minors swooping on to his cage and scaring him, so I'd bring him in. 

Peck Peck started to sing. He'd chat, and chirp and twitter and he'd wake me up in the morning.

One day after letting him fly about the house, I put him in his cage, out in the back yard, because it was a beautiful day.

My friend rang with dramas about her love life. We talked for an hour. I went outside to check Peck Peck and he was gone. 

I think I hadn't shut his door properly. I looked around but I never saw Peck Peck again. Just some big bully minor birds, and Moses the tame magpie with half his top beak missing. (He gets around okay like that.) Cecil and Beverly still come to visit, and we chat about old times with Peck Peck.

 I painted my kitchen yellow in his memory.

Fran Callen

Wally the Red Wattle Bird

“Wally” a Red Wattle Bird came to us via another wildlife carer. Someone had handed him in to her after he flew in and landed on the ladies shoulder while she was hanging out her washing one morning.

Wally was only a juvenile and it was obvious from his feathers coated in sticky goo that someone had been handraising him. He was also very tame and sooky. We are not sure if he escaped and flew away or was released too prematurely, we will never know.

We bathed Wally washing off all the food on his feathers until he was looking like a normal bird again.

At this point in time we doubted he would ever be releasable as he would fly onto our shoulders and talk to us everytime we entered the aviary. This being so we thought that he would be a good companion for other Wattle Birds that needed company whilst undergoing rehabilitation  prior to release.

Over time other Wattle Birds shared the aviary with Wally but he always remained semi tame. That was until another Wattle Bird came into our care and it was just the two of them sharing the aviary.

We could see over time that Wally was distancing himself from us and becoming rather protective of his new partner.

As his character was slowly changing and taking on the character of the wild Wattle Bird he was sharing the aviary with we decided to keep the newer Wattle Bird in care for longer than normal to see if Wally would turn completely wild.

Over the next few weeks Wally became wilder and wilder and each time we entered the aviary to feed them he would try to dive bomb and attack us. We would have to enter the aviary carrying a piece of watermelon with us as that was Wally’s passion and he would do anything for a juicy piece of watermelon!!!

He no longer wanted us and would become very flighty if any of us went near the aviary. This was the sign we needed to give him a second chance at being free.

We opened the aviary door one fine morning and out they both flew and settled happily in the big gum tree next to their aviary. We continued to place food on top of the avairy for them which they came back to when they were hungry. We observed them catching insects in the garden as they did in the aviary and they were also licking the blossom on the trees.

Two days later I was in the kitchen when I heard tap.tap. tap on my kitchen window. There was Wally looking very indignant and trying to get my attention. I raced out there thinking he had gotten into trouble but he flew off. I came back inside and he was back again. Tapping away.

Then it suddenly clicked. I cut some watermelon and took it out there. He flew away from me and perched on the fence. I placed the watermelon on the window sill and came back inside. As soon as I had closed the door down he came and grabbed the watermelon then flew off up into some trees on the other side of the creek.

This became a daily ritual. He would never allow me to get near him but he came in for his daily treat. We saw no sign of his partner but suspected she was waiting in the trees for him to bring back her piece as he would fly away then fly back less than a minute later for another piece.

Slowly over the months his visits became less frequent. Then he stopped coming all together. We were upset that something may have happened to him but at least he had by this time been a free bird for six months.

Xmas time was approaching and we hadn’t seen Wally for 3 months. Two days before xmas I heard that familiar tap. tap. tap on the window again. It was Wally waiting for some watermelon. As usual he waited for me to reenter the house before he came in to collect his free feed. We got the binoculars out and we watched him fly up into a gum tree on the creek line, where he began to share the watermelon with another Wattle Bird sitting on a nest.

He had remembered where to come for a free hand out and maybe he was trying to impress his partner with some delicious treats. Wally continued to come in daily for several weeks until one day he came in and sat on the window sill and on the fence behind him was his partner and two baby Wattle Birds.

This was over ten years ago now and each and every xmas time this same scenario would happen. He would come in and collects his watermelon for the time that his partner is on the nest. Then he would bring all the family in to say goodbye and we wouldn’t see him again until the next December. Unfortunately we have not seen Wally for the past couple of years.

Releasing of already imprinted birds can be reversed. Not all birds can be rehabilitated but this story goes to show that given time and patience and the right environment anything is possible. It made us very happy to see him free and at last count Wally was a proud father to 9 baby Wattlebirds.

Sue Westover

Grandpa and the birds

My Grandpa was a delightful character, five feet tall and, when I knew him, rather rotund. I don't think you would call him an "animal lover", but he certainly loved the animals who became his friends. One of these was Buster, a bantam rooster. Buster loved Grandpa too, and would follow him around everywhere, inside and outside of the house! He even watched television with Grandpa. He was rather bossy as well, and terrorised us kids when we came to visit. One of my favourite memories is of Grandpa relaxed on the lazy-boy on the back lawn with a beer and a cigar, and Buster perched on his large round bare belly! Grandpa was a butcher, and his other bird friends were a couple of local magpies. I remember he would come to the backyard in the early morning with a handful of minced steak from the butcher's shop, and call "maggie, maggie, maggie" in warbling tones. The magpies woudl duly arrive and allow themselves to be hand fed.
Sally Parnis