so what's new?

baby mousebirds
baby mynahs
baby pigeons
baby doves (for a bit of variety)
baby sparrows
baby barbet is still thriving and can now stand upright (I was beginning to worry...)
big pigeons
big mousebirds
big hadedahs
big geese
big tortoise.......

- as you can gather, not much new, although some of the faces do change!

And the dude just gets more and more wonderful. Although it's not a long-term thing, having the crisis level reduced financially has made a huge difference to his mood, and I'm reaping some of the benefits....

full house

so apart from the four cats, three dogs, numerous pigeons and mynahs, the weekend guests have included the teeny barbet (cos I don't want to give him to the centre yet), a baby sparrow who was supposed to be a mynah (only in their dreams!), a peacock in transit to a new home and a rooster. He was spotted standing at the side of a main road by a friend of mine who called me and guarded him till I got there. When I picked him up, I found that part of why he was just standing there was that his wings were tied together at the shoulders with a plastic bag - obviously someone's idea of a handy carry-pack. Also he was starved and dehydrated, but once he was untied and fed, he perked up a bit. Thankfully he was also rehomed quickly, as the hadedas are more than enough of a sunrise serenade for the neighbourhood!

And I've had regular dude-contact, not as much as I'd like, but enough to keep me sane. He is still as sweet and funny and interesting as always. I'm not looking forward to December though - there are all sorts of reasons that are going to limit my time with him - like holidays, and his sister visiting, and me having to work at the rehab centre to fill in shifts while people are away. The worst, of course, is going to be the whole Christmas and New Year period. Don't know how I'm going to get through those pretty much on my own - family will all be travelling overseas, and he'll be stuck at home for most of it. Not going to be fun....

and wednesdays get wilder....

....early morning race from the house after feeding the bird-brats, and taking the babiest mynah with me. The calls started from 07h15 - pigeons all over town needing help or advice. Saw tdoc, and fetched a pigeon with a broken leg from a restaurant, where he'd strayed into the kitchen. Silly bird. Last time I did a restaurant kitchen catch, it was for a weaver, and entailed the manageress leaping along the kitchen counters between piles of crockery, while I stood on top of the fridge and giggled. That took half an hour, so I was glad this one had already been boxed!

Home to the dude. Out to meet the dude for coffee. And then the tour of JHB after that, picking up birds. Total intake for the afternoon, a pinky Black-collared barbet, nestling unknown, feral pigeon juvenile, sparrow fledgling, weaver fledgling, speckled mousebird juvenile, dove fledgling....to be added to the 15 pigeons, two mynahs and a parakeet still in residence in my spare room. Phoned the centre manager to gloat about the baby barbet, and the first thing she said was 'damn - if I'd known you were going to that area I would have made you fetch and release three birds from around there'. Spring, and spring rains....

Pics are of the evil parakeet, the barbet, the unknown and my favourite view of the babiest mynah!

oh no, not another baby...please!

- fat little feral pigeons (in pic), big-mouthed baby mynahs, and in between an assortment of others. The past week has included lots of baby thrushes, doves, mousebirds, bulbuls - and just for variety, there is currently a gorgeous Alexandrian (Alexandrine?) parakeet in residence. He was frightened away from home by a thunderstorm, someone spotted him in the garden and enticed him inside with an apple, and he's now staying with me for a few days in the hopes that his owner will be searching. If not, he'll be fostered to a new home. Meantime, he hates me passionately for putting him in a cage.

The pigeons and mynahs, on the other hand, greet me ecstatically, generally with mouths open and ready for feeding. There's a sweet little mynah fledgling with us at the moment who is a bit older than would be ideal for taming, but not too old yet. He's doing the dance of the deadly syringe with me at the moment, the one where he wants the baby food that the others get, but feels it might be undignified to just take it. So he opens his mouth, but as I get the syringe close enough and squirt, he leaps to the side. Food gets in just often enough to make it worthwhile, but a lot ends up around or on him, and the wall behind where he normally stands is gaining some interesting hand-rearing spray patterns. Patience...he'll either become a cuddly bird, or get wilder and be released. It's his choice.

Birds and beasts are occupying most of my time because they just keep flooding in, but enough is diverted to other things. Work is going really crap - doesn't matter what I do or say it is the wrong thing. So just trying to be inoffensive and do what I can, until things calm down somehow. The dude is working himself to a standstill on what looks as if it will be a hugely profitable idea. His concept, but he has taken a partner for finance, who is also contributing great ideas. If it works as it should, he will soon be earning megabucks - meantime, he is still broke and battling. But after another rocky weekend, he has been here for large portions of every day - mostly working, but that is still great for me. He works, I do my own work or other things, he talks about what he is doing and we cuddle a lot. So a big chunk of my day is pretty close to perfection....

definitely spring

baby bird season is in full swing. I have 12 baby pigeons, one mynah, one White-eye about an inch long. And the newest arrival, a little finch who is so fragile that I can hardly pick him up. He is about 3 days old, and was dropped in the swimming pool by a mynah who was probably taking him home for supper on Friday night - luckily the house-owner saw it happen and got him out immediately. I'm surprised he has survived this long, but he's obviously a toughie. Only hope he makes it, as I'm starting to get very fond of him.

With the last two on 30 minute feeds, there hasn't been much time for anything else this weekend. Not even afternoon naps. So I'm tired and miserable. And if this is how it feels already, don't know how I'm going to make it through baby season. In spite of me bawling through most of the appt, p-doc was all smug, because he reckons feeling worse off the Pexola is a good sign. Wonderful. Now if only I got to feel good with it or anything else. At least one of us is optimistic about the Aurorix though.

This is going to be a bitch of a week, and the following one will be worse. The work meeting that the moronic account team cancelled on Friday has been replaced with an all day workshop on Thurs - to discuss about 20 mins of info, and with traffic, I will be out for at least 11 hours. Waste of time and resources, and the client ends up paying for it. So have had to cancel both p-doc and t-doc for then. T-doc is away from Friday so will see her this Tues and then not for two weeks. Don't know if I'll get to see p-doc at all. And my own useless manager has suddenly decided that he needs to know what 'we' are going to say on Thurs, so has called a meeting for Weds.
After he has done bugger all for 7 months on this, I don't really see that he can justify any interference now just because his managers are going to be at the workshop.

With how I feel at the moment, I almost wish they would fire me. It would probably be a good enough reason to finish things off. And I just don't know how much longer I can endure this anyway....

around town. and again. and again.

- the circuitous path being a result of heading from one side of town to the other to fetch pigeons, heading back again for another one, etc.... Current brood consists of baby doveling, 5 baby pigeons, 1 adult dove with a broken wing, 1 fledgling dove and a fledgling Rock pigeon. Will try to take all but the babies to the centre tomorrow - after I've picked up another one in the morning....

So apart from seeing t-doc, didn't do much else. Went to the centre to collect a pigeon, and as I arrived, talking to a vet on the cellphone, one of the senior volunteers came running. She stood by the car looking as if she was jumping from one foot to the other mentally. When I eventually got off the phone, she tells me that bosslady is out at a vet with an injured buck, and there are meerkats escaped - that got me hopping too. Towel and net, no shoes available so flip-flops it is, and off we go. I caught two of the four, and then got them back into the cage where the rest were by now really aggro. And then, chicken that I am, I looked at the tunnel that needed to be blocked from within the cage, looked at my vulnerable toes - and sent a newer, braver volunteer who'd already been bitten twice by the one she was bunging back. Working on the theory that she already needed an anti-tetanus shot anyway. Nothing like a bit of nasty little mammal-chasing to get the adrenalin pumping for the day.

DB sent an sms yesterday, saying she wanted to return 2 CDs that I'd lent her, and that she'd made something that she wanted to give me. Refrained from sending the 1st two replies that came to mind, namely to toss the CDs (they are compilations that I burnt to use in the car), and to ask whether whatever she had made contained arsenic or not. Ended up not replying. She sent another this morning while I was with t-doc asking whether I'd received her msg yesterday and saying she really wanted to give me whatever she has made whenever I see p-doc. Resisted the immediate thought to tell her to bin that too, and ended up not saying anything. No point in being nasty. Won't help anything. Won't make the things she said on Sunday go away - guess it won't take away the things I retaliated with either - and it won't change anything. I know that eventually I will think of her, think about the nicer side of things. At the moment though, when my phone beeps to signal a message, I flinch, and look at it reluctantly. Kind of waiting for the next shot to be fired. And as evidenced 3 days out of 4 since Sunday, I am still dumb enough to read them anyway.

Yawning lots, and have an early morning bird pickup, so to bed I guess.