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....