Birds

Update on the Stray Cockatiel

I haven’t seen the stray cockatiel around in the trees since last week.  I took the bird cage off the table and put it back on its chair.  I emptied the seeds in the safe spot where a couple doves come to eat whatever seed I have to spare and Luna watches, drooling.  Now I have seven pounds of bird seed, so I will dole out some seed every day.  I want to make sure the doves eat all of the dole and don’t leave any leftover to attract rats or other varmints.

The cockatiel isn’t around, but a mockingbird is doing a good job of adding the cockatiel tune to her repetoire.   I hope the bird found its way back home.

Helen

The “Wild” Cockatiel of Fort Doberdale

Wild Fort Doberdale Cockatiel of June 11, 2008

Well, another cockatiel is loose in the trees of Fort Doberdale. I heard him first thing yesterday evening when I got home from work. I stuck my finger out and whistled, but he was having too much fun singing in the tree to come down. This morning, I heard him again, and saw that he moved over one tree, and was still singing away. The blue jay nearby was having issues with him and trying to peck him out of that tree, but he stood his ground. I think the jay has a nest in the tree the tiel previously laid claim to. I hear a lot of peeping baby birds up there.

Cage on Chair

I just pulled a cage that a friend gave me to catch a cocatiel last year off a table and stuck it on a chair in front of a plant I’m trying to protect from the Fort Doberdale peesers. You know the table it came from? It now has a nifty new trinket named Sam on it.

Cage pointing at the Cockatiel Tree

Well, this morning, I put the cage back on another table, and aimed its opening right at the tree the tiel was now in. Being I had just recently fed the Fort Doberdale doves the food donated to catch last year’s tiel, I now have to find some new bird food to put in that cage, which has been basically inhabited by lizards all these months.

Oh well. I don’t have any luck with catching these cockatiels, and maybe if I do catch him I’ll have no place to send him? Huh? Where will he go? Huh? I think birds belong flying in the sky anyway. My concern with pet birds, though, is they aren’t savvy as to surviving in the wilds. Geesh. And boy, is he noisy! People think the local parrots are loud. Uh uh. This tiel just sings and sings and it’s just nonstop loud bird singing times around here. Yes, it is.

Helen

Fort Doberdale’s Resident Night Owl

I’ve been trying to get a good picture of our night owl for years. She is magnificent. Every night I know she is out there by the lulling sound she makes. Lulling to me, and maybe to her prey it means something else like “Come here little animal, so I can eat you. Bahahahahaha!”

Well, last night, I happened to be in the right place at the right time.  I saw movement and watched the owl swoop out of the sky and swipe something from the tree trunk. I was hoping it was a rat, but she took it to the branch of the the tree, and ate it. There were no pieces hanging out of the beak resembling a rat. There were no pieces resembling anything, so I am going to assume it was a lizard. K?

After eating, she sat on her perch singing, and I snapped pictures. I couldn’t get to my ladder, and had to hold the camera. This was one of the better pictures. Isn’t she magnificent?

Night Owl

I wonder where she sleeps during the day. She keeps the hours of vampires.

Helen

Sunday’s Goings On

One night late last week, I was ready to shut my eyes and go to sleep, when I heard Annie’s bark. Rather demanding, might I say. She usually sleeps on the floor in the bedroom, so why I heard her barking from another room, I don’t know. Especially being all she had to do was use her legs to walk to our room.

So, I got up and followed the bark. Then I saw what happened. You see, Annie was in Raven’s crate, when I put that little rascal in for the night. Annie didn’t say a word till she saw where the night wind was blowing, and that wasn’t where she wanted to stay.

Here’s the picture I got, half awake, but you can make out the dilemma. Quite amusing.

Let me out of here with this loon!

On Sunday, I found these two green parrot types hanging about in one of my pine trees. I think they are looking to start a family. I know there are some notches in that tree, though not at all sure if that will suffice for a nest. Though I hope it will!

A pair of parrots thinking about building a nest?

Well, not sure if he was the one, but someone caught and did in a lizzard on Sunday afternoon. Bouchard is the fellow who got to carry it around and show it off. He tries very hard to be a fantastic Big Lizard Safari Guy, but he falls short of bagging the game. Usually, Pippin or Annie makes the catch, then Bouchard and others display it.

So here is Bouchard, with the trophy. He thinks it’s so lovely, he can’t take his French eyes off it.

Bouchard’s new “pet.”

And we have Raven, who would like to have that trophy. (What’s new?)

Raven wants that.

The tail gave Baby quite a bit of trouble. She just couldn’t get it to stop wiggling. Eegads!

Baby Paw-Paw

Luigi put his toy on a dog blanket that was out drying. He barked at it, and when he realized no one was going to fetch it for him, he took action. (Luna was eye-balling it at that point.)

Luigi fetches his own blue Dino Cuz ball

This pair of doves sat in our dead grapefruit tree for quite a while. Even during a mellow rainstorm.

Pair of Doves

This is a spider that reminds me of a crab! I stay away from them if I can. They make their webs so transparent that if you don’t see the speck in the middle, boink! But they run away from me as much as I do from them. Yet, I’m the one with web all over my face. Yuck!

Crab spider

Here is the sky on Sunday afternoon. We expected something transformational from this, but it was only a few minutes of sporatic big rain drops in our neighborhood, though I think elsewhere, the weather was more phenomenal.

Beautiful stormy afternoon moment

Helen