The Bird Whisperer

[Cristo Rei]

I am somewhat of a bird whisperer... I always seem to come across injured or lost birds

I saw this bird in the backyard and was taken by beauty...
Its a pigeon with a colour scheme which i had never seen before...

A white head and tail with a dark body and wings.. Its got iridescent purple and green around its neck that changes and flickers from different angles in the sun

I noticed it had a tag around its leg... It was somebodies pet. So i edged closer to her
Soon she was eating out of my hand and was climbing all over me...
I grabbed it slowly and put it in a spare cage with food and water
This bird was so comfortable with me, it was obviously used to being handled

I never saw a bird eat sooo much, she was starving.
And the water, geez, im used to observing birds and id never seen birds drink like these guys... They usually fill their beaks and tilt their heads back to swallow it. These guys just stick their beaks in the water and gulp it up without lifting their heads... The poor thing was soo thirsty it sculled water for about 10 seconds...

There was a number on the tag so i rang the owner to pick it up...
This poor bird had been lost for 7 days and had come from Geelong which is 100km away
The poor thing... When their raised at home birds often die if they escape cos they weren't taught how to feed in the wild... She was lucky there is seed laying about from the budgies i have...

That was the highlight of my day lol...

 

[Josho]

What a wonderful moment that was.

 

[Cristo Rei]

What a wonderful moment that was.

Yea it was awesome... A part of me wanted to keep it but i couldn't do it given the phone number of the owner was on its leg...
And the owner was so over the moon about it. Seeing him come and go away so happy with his bird filled me with joy...

The pigeon was soo lucky to have landed in our backyard its full of food cos i have 2 budgies and also feed these local turtle doves...
They have such a free ride the turtle doves. First was "big poppa" i call him... He would hang around our birdcage cleaning up the scraps that fell out of the cage... Then we started to put the husks in the garden for the turtle doves to eat... Parrots, like budgies, split open the seed and eat the inside leaving the outer husk, pigeons just gulp the whole thing. Now we just put some seed in there too... Big Poppa gets a mate and makes another one or two birds. Soon their gone along with the hen. But it doesn't take long for big poppa to bring another lass home and the same thing happens, their not monogamous like some birds are...

These are turtle doves caught in what is a rare moment to observe...

Just last week i was watching the two foraging on the lawn and one of them, the hen, did something very odd.
It pointed its beak up vertically like it was praying almost... The other bird, the cock, approached it and started pecking it a bit...
I thought ey what are u doing... Then in a flash big poppa mounted the hen and the copulated. they copulated.

Man don't even ask me how they do it cos they seem to defy the laws of physics and it happens so fast u miss it...
How How How How How how is it possible...

 

[Cristo Rei]

This is the basic anatomy of most birds...
Both the male and female are equipped with just one hole known as the cloaca and their position on the same part of their bodies.
So they have to line up the holes while the male shoots it just at the right moment of alignment...
Note its position, angle and other geometric details...

Now here are some birds caught in that fleeting moment...
Budgies... How is it possible from that angle, its a magic trick

Rainbow lorikeets, i have some stories about them as well...
As you can see from the angles and positioning achieving a successful copulation looks impossible

Seagulls... Houdini and Harriette...
What makes it even more impossible is the fact their not even looking at what their doing down there...

So how many of us actually really know all about the "birds and the bees"???
If anyone can explain how they manage to achieve this impossible fete then i will send them a medal...

 

[Cristo Rei]

One morning a few years ago i was driving to the snow with a friend. It was early morning, before sunrise, when i saw something colourful on the side of the road... My friend didn't see it but i decided to go back and found this beautiful baby Crimson Rosella...
As i approached the bird it didn't even move. She lay in the gutter all twisted and mangled... I thought she was dead...
But then i noticed her eye moving and blinking... She was alive... I tried to pick her up and to my surprise she allowed it...
This is very unusual cos wild birds won't even allow humans to get close... Her body was lifeless so i folding her wings up properly...
I tried to place her on my finger but her feet were partially closed and wouldn't hold onto my finger...

She hadn't been in the gutter for long... I could tell cos she was so clean... I think she may have been run over by a car that was just up ahead.
I decided to put her in a shoe box and she sat there with her tailed fanned out. I still don't know why she sat in this unnatural position.
If you look closely at her foot you can see that its folded over in a peculiar position... We got to the snow and she was still the same so we went out riding... She was the same at lunch and at the end of the day so we took her back to the hotel...

Over the following days we saw gradually improve. We would go riding in the day and leave her at the hotel with plenty of food and water...
By the last day she was getting around and had become used to my mate and i... She would climb up our arms, fly around the room, nibble on everything and break whatever she could... All natural behaviours... I was tossing up weather or not to take her home and keep her. She was tame now, but i decided to release her at the same spot i found her during our drive back home...

When we got there she wouldn't go. I tried to toss her into the direction of the trees but she would just turn back to us...
My mate said "She wants to stay with u" but I was unconvinced... Most birds have extraordinary vision in the day but under low light their vision becomes even worse than ours... I don't think she could see well enough in the dark to be able to fly away...
So i went to a tree, placed her on a branch and walked back to the car... I thought she might fly back to me but she stayed in the tree...

She would be an adult now... All of her juvenile feathers would of been replaced by the adult colour that we see in the picture above...
No more green, just black, blue and crimson... I wonder if she would remember me if she saw me again...

 

[Cristo Rei]

Aww u guys have gotta watch this... Sometimes i feel like the world is evil as well as everyone in it...
I love this cos it reminds me that most humans have a good heart

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=3511815552219176

 

[quietthinker]

I am somewhat of a bird whisperer... I always seem to come across injured or lost birds

I saw this bird in the backyard and was taken by beauty...
Its a pigeon with a colour scheme which i had never seen before...

A white head and tail with a dark body and wings.. Its got iridescent purple and green around its neck that changes and flickers from different angles in the sun

I noticed it had a tag around its leg... It was somebodies pet. So i edged closer to her
Soon she was eating out of my hand and was climbing all over me...
I grabbed it slowly and put it in a spare cage with food and water
This bird was so comfortable with me, it was obviously used to being handled

I never saw a bird eat sooo much, she was starving.
And the water, geez, im used to observing birds and id never seen birds drink like these guys... They usually fill their beaks and tilt their heads back to swallow it. These guys just stick their beaks in the water and gulp it up without lifting their heads... The poor thing was soo thirsty it sculled water for about 10 seconds...

There was a number on the tag so i rang the owner to pick it up...
This poor bird had been lost for 7 days and had come from Geelong which is 100km away
The poor thing... When their raised at home birds often die if they escape cos they weren't taught how to feed in the wild... She was lucky there is seed laying about from the budgies i have...

That was the highlight of my day lol...

good on you Cristo!

 

[Nancy]

I am somewhat of a bird whisperer... I always seem to come across injured or lost birds

I saw this bird in the backyard and was taken by beauty...
Its a pigeon with a colour scheme which i had never seen before...

A white head and tail with a dark body and wings.. Its got iridescent purple and green around its neck that changes and flickers from different angles in the sun

I noticed it had a tag around its leg... It was somebodies pet. So i edged closer to her
Soon she was eating out of my hand and was climbing all over me...
I grabbed it slowly and put it in a spare cage with food and water
This bird was so comfortable with me, it was obviously used to being handled

I never saw a bird eat sooo much, she was starving.
And the water, geez, im used to observing birds and id never seen birds drink like these guys... They usually fill their beaks and tilt their heads back to swallow it. These guys just stick their beaks in the water and gulp it up without lifting their heads... The poor thing was soo thirsty it sculled water for about 10 seconds...

There was a number on the tag so i rang the owner to pick it up...
This poor bird had been lost for 7 days and had come from Geelong which is 100km away
The poor thing... When their raised at home birds often die if they escape cos they weren't taught how to feed in the wild... She was lucky there is seed laying about from the budgies i have...

That was the highlight of my day lol...

That would have been quite the highlight for me too Cristo! And the colors are something I've never seen before either.

 

[amadeus]

@Cristo Rei
My very best friend from the year I moved to Oklahoma [1987] acquired the nick name, "Squirrel Man", after a local news paper photographer caught him riding a bicycle down the street with a squirrel on the handlebars and a homemade collar around its neck.

My friend trimmed trees for a living and sometimes in spite of his caution and expertise he would discover after the fact that he had caused baby squirrels to be orphans in the trees he cut down. He would take any extras to a shelter where they would care for them, but he would always keep one for himself. His would care for it and teach it to stay on his head and shoulders while walking. Of course, the squirrel would go out with him in his truck when he went to trim or cut down more trees. Some time after the squirrels were full grown he would release them to the wild close to his home. They would come back regularly for a long time to eat snacks from his hand.

The squirrel man had cut way back on his tree work due to age and weakness from many falls over the years, but he refused to quit as he had been warned to do by family and friends. On March 1, 2020 he fell from a tree one last time and at the age of 69 years past from this life.

 

[Nancy]

@Cristo Rei
My very best friend from the year I moved to Oklahoma [1987] acquired the nick name, "Squirrel Man", after a local news paper photographer caught him riding a bicycle down the street with a squirrel on the handlebars and a homemade collar around its neck.

My friend trimmed trees for a living and sometimes in spite of his caution and expertise he would discover after the fact that he had caused baby squirrels to be orphans in the trees he cut down. He would take any extras to a shelter where they would care for them, but he would always keep one for himself. His would care for it and teach it to stay on his head and shoulders while walking. Of course, the squirrel would go out with him in his truck when he went to trim or cut down more trees. Some time after the squirrels were full grown he would release them to the wild close to his home. They would come back regularly for a long time to eat snacks from his hand.

The squirrel man had cut way back on his tree work due to age and weakness from many falls over the years, but he refused to quit as he had been warned to do by family and friends. On March 1, 2020 he fell from a tree one last time and at the age of 69 years past from this life.

Oh, what a bittersweet story John. I wish he would have listened to his family and friends.