UnSpace

I walked into the Bird "Flight Room" on Thursday evening to find Princess, our cockatiel, skewered through her wing on a branch of the willow tree we keep in the room. At first I thought she was dead, but examining her showed that she was exhausted, frightened, but still alive. The budgies had chewed the upturned branch to a mild point. Despite the branch being protected by the rest of the tree, somehow Princess fell onto it, having it pass through the wing just above the radius and ulna.

We had last been in the room an hour before. There were no screams. We don't know how long she was hanging.

In humans, the impaling object would be cut away, stabilized, and the person transported to the hospital. Cutting away the branch would have delayed getting Princess free and greatly increased her fear. Against my training I correctly decided (according to the vet) that sliding her up the branch was the best way to free her. There was no further bleeding.

The vet says nothing was broken. The place Princess pierced is similar to the webbing between fingers, cannot be stitched, and should heal on its own. There is a possibility that we may have a "punk" bird with a piercing after this, but the wound should heal and Princess be able to fly again.

She was given a shot of antibiotic, placed on a twice daily antibiotic, and was also placed on Metacam for pain control. She doesn't like having her wing wrapped up, but has given up attempting to remove the dressing the vet placed. She's in an incubator to keep her warm and we take her out and cuddle her several times a day to help her feel less lonely.

Princess, by the way, was the Angel on our Birdie Nativity Play Christmas card last year. She also starred as an adornment on a wreath in our 1998 Christmas card, when she was less than a year old!

Would anyone think it odd if I painted the walls black in the bird room?

There are plenty of things wrong with this picture. Obviously, I should use a tripod when playing with the strobe. The background gets saturated in these photographs. But still, this is a cool first attempt. There are two birds that are flying in the image: a blue one and a turquoise one. The white bird in the lower center wasn't actually flying — I think it was flapping while perched.

The aperture was cranked as high (small) as possible and the shot was for .5 seconds. I don't know if I can do much better in this situation, and I really don't feel like painting the walls!

Still, it's fun!

Don't let the frustrations of the season
make you forget why you're celebrating.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
from Nancy and Rob

Professional stunt parrot. Do not attempt at home.

Gingerbread house by Nancy Carr
Photography by Rob Carr © 2007.

(click on picture for larger version)

Yeah, a skateboarding budgie doing a major Ollie!

Dr. Pepperberg relates this experience:

There are some things that the birds do that, colloquially speaking, "just blow us away." We were training Alex to sound out phonemes, not because we want him to read as humans do, but we want to see if he understands that his labels are made up of sounds that can be combined in different ways to make up new words; that is, to demonstrate evidence for segmentation. He babbles at dusk, producing strings like "green, cheen, bean, keen", so we have some evidence for this behavior, but we need more solid data.

Thus we are trying to get him to sound out refrigerator letters, the same way one would train children on phonics. We were doing demos at the Media Lab for our corporate sponsors; we had a very small amount of time scheduled and the visitors wanted to see Alex work. So we put a number of differently colored letters on the tray that we use, put the tray in front of Alex, and asked, "Alex, what sound is blue?" He answers, "Ssss." It was an "s", so we say "Good birdie" and he replies, "Want a nut."

Well, I don't want him sitting there using our limited amount of time to eat a nut, so I tell him to wait, and I ask, "What sound is green?" Alex answers,"Ssshh." He's right, it's "sh," and we go through the routine again: "Good parrot." "Want a nut." "Alex, wait. What sound is orange?" "ch." "Good bird!""Want a nut." We're going on and on and Alex is clearly getting more and more frustrated. He finally gets very slitty-eyed and he looks at me and states, "Want a nut. Nnn, uh, tuh."

Not only could you imagine him thinking, "Hey, stupid, do I have to spell it for you?" but the point was that he had leaped over where we were and had begun sounding out the letters of the words for us. This was in a sense his way of saying to us, "I know where you're headed! Let's get on with it," which gave us the feeling that we were on the right track with what we were doing.

These kinds of things don't happen in the lab on a daily basis, but when they do, they make you realize there's a lot more going on inside these little walnut-sized brains than you might at first imagine.

Alex, co-worker with Dr. Irene Pepperberg, died on September 7th.

African grey parrots have a quoted lifespan of about 60 years, but it is thought by many that with good care, those alive today have the potential to live to be 100. Alex has been treated for aspergillus in the past. In parrots, it's not a disease that's ever cured, although it's far more comforting to forget something like that.

I think I'm going to get Cirrus our African grey parrot and play with her and tell her how much we love her. Nancy is doing the same right now with Holmes, our other African grey.

Bye, Alex.

As Cirrus would say…"Woooo!"

While talking with my mother-in-law today on the phone, I suddenly shouted "Hold on, I have to photograph something!" Perhaps not surprisingly, my mother-in-law is used to this sort of thing. I saw this female downy woodpecker ( Picoides pubescens ) at the feeder. The bird was devouring the suet as I watched. The bird flew away and then came back, hanging on the side of the pole with its sharp toenails.

This is the first downy woodpecker we've seen in our backyard. They're smaller than the usual red-headed woodpeckers we get around here.

I found a parrot joke online — half in English and half in what seems to be Hindi:

A parrot goes to a shopkeeper and asks …. 'Aam hai kya?'
The shopkeeper says … 'Nahi. Hum Aam nahi bechate.'
Next day at the same time, the parrot goes again and asks him …'Aam hai kya ?'
He gets a little irritated and says… 'Aare Bola na, Hum 'Aam nahi Bechate'
On the third day, the parrot goes again and asks him 'Aam hai kya ?'
He gets wild and yells …'Bola na naahi. Abhi vapas aaya to hathoda marunga sar ke upar'
The next day,the parrot comes again and asks him ..'hathoda hai kya ?'
The shopkeeper says … 'Nahi'
The parrot then asks … 'Aam hai kya ?'

After a bit of searching, I found out that "aam" is "mango" and "hathoda" is "hammer." Looking at the structure of the joke, I'm fairly sure this translation gives the gist of the joke:

A parrot goes to a shopkeeper and asks "Do you have any mangoes?"
The shopkeeper says "No. I never have mangoes here."
Next day at the same time, the parrot goes again and asks him "Do you have any mangoes?"
He gets a little irritated and says "I told you, I never have mangoes here."
On the third day, the parrot goes again and asks him "Do you have any mangoes?"
He gets wild and yells "No I don't. If you ask me again, I'll hit you with a hammer!"
The next day,the parrot comes again and asks him "Do you have any hammers?"
The shopkeeper says "No."
The parrot then asks "Do you have any mangoes?"

This joke's funny, especially on a day where Cirrus has asked "What does that birdie want?" about 20 times. I still can't get her to say the word "nut." Sigh.

I went out back with the camera this afternoon. The permaculture garden/ science experiment / global warming carbon footprint reduction is in full swing.

The twelve-spot dragonflies are back!

The currants are almost ready to eat:

A cardinal flew through the vegetable garden:

The tadpoles are getting bigger and seem to like the algae:

The wasps like the algae in the pond, too:

The Columbine is in bloom:

The salsafied has gone to seed:

The purple milkweed is about to bloom:

And song sparrows are bathing in the pond:

Notice the water droplets!

Kessie preens Clint's beak

Clint's stroke happened several years ago. He recovered, but a peculiar head tilt was an outward sign that damage remained. More than once, Clint will fall while climbing on the underside of the roof of his cage, dropping fifteen times his height to the ground. The result is always the same. Immediately, Clint looks around, daring anyone to notice his mistake. As he rights himself, Kessie his mate comes over and screams at him. Most of their communication is in body language, and Kessie is quite clear she wishes Clint would quit taking such risks.

The metal rings on their legs are open; those rings are called "open bands." Birds born in captivity have a closed band ring up over the feet and loosely on the leg. As the birds grow, the feet become so large that the band can no longer be removed without cutting. Clint and Kessie were both mitered conures were taken from the wild and brought to America. Capturing parrots that way for the pet bird trade has been illegal for decades; the best guess is that Clint and Kessie are in their thirties.

According to the avian medicine literature, mitered conures live to about thirty years of age.

There are small signs that Clint's neurological damage might be getting worse. He's started wandering far from the cage the two birds share. Clint's wandering upsets Kessie greatly. She follows him around, attempting to herd him back to where she can keep an eye on him.

Recently, she started screaming at him when he wouldn't go where she wanted him to. Clint was standing there, shaking a bit, trying to move his one leg, but his brain was having trouble starting that motion. Kessie shoved his leg with her beak, and he toddled back to the cage. Between that and his slight tremors, Clint would get a diagnosis of Parkinson-like syndrome, if not full Parkinson's. There are no good avian medicines for Parkinsons, so the vet sees no need for a more exact diagnosis.

Back on top of the cage, Clint and Kessie stand touching. Clint's head is down, still turned slightly, his eyes closed and his breathing slowed as he naps. Kessie turns her head so that one eye focuses on him. As she watches him sleep, there's a change. Birds aren't alpha predators, and so they rarely display weakness. The front of superiority is to convince predators someone else is easier prey and flock mates that their place in the literal pecking order is, if anything, too low. But ask Kessie watches Clint, her wings drop, her facial feathers aren't puffed out, and she loses the threat stance. Gently, she preens some of Clint's facial feathers for him, and he responds by grinding his beak in pleasure, not quite waking.

Slowly, Kessie turned and brought one eye to focus on me. Her posture didn't change, there was none of the "You humans are our servants, and we will bite you to keep you in your place." Her stance, her tail position, the way gravity tugs on her wings, the closed beak lowered, and the steady pupils that didn't pulse with excitement, all these things brought only one phrase to my mind, clear and unshakable.

"I'm going to lose him, aren't I?"

Was she really thinking that? I think so. I don't know that the parrots think of time as humans do, but they have a sense of future. "I'll get you a sunflower seed after the next commercial" produces screams if the commercial comes and goes without treats. "Rob will be back after two Barneys" results in excitement two days later when Barney disappears from the TV screen. I don't know if parrots understand death, but the budgies act surprised when a formerly sick bird returns from quarantine in the incubator. Is their concept closer to "flew away forever" than death. Do they think the other bird flew to that place all the other birds flew off to, someplace better, with plenty of food, water, and paper to tear to shreds (and no humans to throw all that work)? Or do they think in terms of a predator's eventual victory?

Perhaps I'm projecting onto Kessie. Her behavior reminds me of an elderly couple I know, where after the wife gives her husband his medicine for Parkinson's, she steps back and watches him. Her posture changes just like Kessie's did, and only the hardest of neurophysiologists would claim that I'm projecting thoughts of loss onto the woman.

Whatever Kessie is actually thinking and feeling, the moment is soon over. Clint wakes up and climbs up onto the underside of the cage top and walks upside down over that "times fifteen" drop. Kessie screams at him for doing this. Clint turns to look at her and almost loses his footing. A flurry of wings and beak and feet lets him grab back on. Her screams get even louder and more insistent. Her pupils turn first to pinpoints and then expand as far as possible, and she takes on a posture of authority, which Clint ignores.

Kessie hates it when Clint ignores her orders.

We've got three more baby budgies we're raising. The big one with feathers coming in and the dark one are from Spangles and Spitfire, while Leela and Spot produced the one white one. They're cute. The dark one was a little sick when we pulled it from the nest. For some reason, some babies are born with black, tarry stools and splayed legs. We found that Propel Sports Drink with Calcium, used instead of water in the formula, seems to perk these guys up. As you can see, the dark one perked up and is now walking around without splayed legs.

Nancy and I went on a picnic down to Piney Fork in Jefferson Hills. I didn't take many photos, because we were on a picnic! Click on the photos to enlarge!

When we got back home, I had more time to take pictures. Here are some pictures from our yard. Again, you can click on them to see the larger pictures. The photo names tell what they are if you don't know.

Finally, we pulled two baby parakeets from a nest box today! We'll be hand-feeding them until they wean!

When I got home from getting my stitches removed, I went for a cup of coffee. Looking out the window, I saw this grackle begging. I grabbed a camera and got a few shots.

From watching our parakeets and other birds, there's no question the fluttering of the wings and the open mouth is begging behavior. The question is, "Why?" This bird is too large and too shiny to be a baby from this year, and the eye is obviously yellow, not brown as a youngster's would be.

From the above picture, the tail appears to be shorter and the body color more brown, indicating this is a female grackle. This provides us with an alternative explanation for the behavior. This is a lone female advertising that she is available to the males who were in the area. Tail up, wings trembling, and mouth open, I'm sure we're all thinking of a caption for these photographs, but I'm not going to put it on my blog!

In the above photograph, the eye appears somewhat blue. I'm not sure if I caught the eye mid-blink with a shutter speed that made the eyelid semi-transparent, or if I caught the nictitating membrane partially over the eye. Usually, nictitating membranes move horizontally, so the blurred eyelid explanation is more likely. You have a nictitating membrane in your eye — it's that pink lump over in the corner near your nose. The nictitating membrane is not functional in humans and doesn't stretch out over your eye.

By the way, I noticed something interesting. The bird feeder was nearly empty. If I moved, the birds were far more likely to scatter than normal. I can't say if the birds are less likely to stick it out if there's a lot of food, or if they're more distracted when there's more food. Clearly, though, a full bird feeder with some fresh seed scattered below it is the photographers friend.

When we got home from church, the bird feeder was hopping. Ok, so actually, the birds were hopping, flying, and otherwise darting about. I got some action shots and thought I'd share them with you as an Easter present.

Above, you can see a female sparrow coming in for a landing, disturbing a male sparrow, while another female sparrow looks on.

The females don't seem to want to let the male sparrow come back to the feeder!

For some reason, this bird coming into the bird feeder reminds me of a Cylon raider. Clearly, I'm watching too much TV.

I don't know if this is an "action shot," but the wind was ruffling this female cardinal's feathers.

I called this picture "cardinal hop" but actually the bird was flying into the feeder and shut down it's wings at this point in preparation for a landing. It ran out of momentum at just the right time to perch on the feeder.

I love how the tail feathers and wingtip feathers are spread in this picture. There's a seed visible in the bird's beak.

The sparrow and the house finch aren't very clear on this one, and even the cardinal started to move because of the commotion. Still, it's a fun shot, and I thought I'd post it.

Thanks, by the way, to all who left supportive comments or e-mailed good wishes in response to the previous post. They help. If all goes well, I'll explain more when the results are in.

Two male cardinals came to the feeder this morning accompanied by their mates¹. Cardinal males are very territorial; usually we only ever see one pair in our yard. This morning, because of the sudden snowfall at a time when these birds are preparing to nest, we got a greater than normal number of birds at the bird feeder and the surroundings. The mourning dove (Zenaida macroura) is just trying to eat. The distant male assumes a beginning threat posture.

The closer male takes a more aggressive stance and the distant male is intimidated. The mourning dove has decided to stop eating and pay attention to what's going on.

The mourning dove did not pay quite enough attention. We've noticed that, when a parrot becomes aggressive, they become indiscriminant in whom they attack. So too with the wild birds. We call this attack "Got Your Tail." Parrots play "Got Your Tail" as a game, but will also use it as an attack. As you see here, cardinals will at least attack this way. Similarities in bird behavior across such disparate species intrigues me. Is the behavior the same because "form dictates function," or can the common behaviors be traced back to an ancient common ancestor?

Here, one of the females hops from one place to another. She didn't actually fly following this jump. A sparrow looks on.

In the above shot, the female did fly following this picture. I'm not sure if I caught the bird leaping before beginning flight, or if the wings are simply on a backstroke.

Here's a shot of a male cardinal landing. The bird is slightly blurry, both because of motion and the location of the focal plane. Photography is about compromise; a faster shutter speed would have required a narrower focal plane for the given lighting. I caught this bird landing while shooting in burst mode, and the lens did not focus quickly enough on the what I wanted to catch. The rock, you'll notice, is in perfect focus.

1. Note: The correct collective noun for the birds called cardinals is "college." No pun or reference to a religious leader (straight, gay, asexual, abstinent or other) is intended. [back]

For the record, I'd like to mention that Nancy is very careful with the knife when the budgie is playing on the celery. No parakeets were harmed in the making of this video!

This is ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea). When I asked Nancy about it, she told me it was used to flavor beer at one time, and that it was taking over the yard and she wanted to rip it out. After seeing this photo, she declared that ground ivy never looked so good. Apparently, she's changed her mind and will keep at least some of the ground ivy.

Nancy says that these violets were in a pot along with a plant she ordered. Her best guess is that they're some variation on the common blue violet (Viola sororia), but that's a guess.

The daffodils are blooming in our yard, and I wanted to play around with depth of focus. I used a small tripod to help hod the camera steady, and lay on the ground to get this shot. I'd say something about the neighbors thinking I'm nuts, but they must have realized that years ago.

This isn't Puppy Dog, but rather another robin. The eye markings struck me as unusual, and so I grabbed this photo. If this were CSI, they'd take this image, blow up the section of the image with the eye, sharpen the image, and prove that I took the picture. In reality, you can already see a bit of the grain in this photo. I've pushed this image about as hard as it can be pushed. No way could you see who photographed it reflected in the bird's eye. I think I can make out the boundary between the house roof and the sky, with what might be the furnace chimney, but I know where the bird was, where the photo was taken from, and that's just a guess. No way do you get the tail number of the airplane flying by through the clouds.