Happy Hatchdays

The always good and always sweet Starlinka turned 11 years old in June!

Stella turned 21 in April but unlike Adele, she's not going to make anyone cry about it.

And then there were the twins....the terrible, terrible, no longer teenager twins.

Michael Ray and Cathy Jean may have turned 20 years old last month but they certainly didn't get any more mature.

Nonetheless, everyone had a happy hatchday...some just involved more cleanup afterwards than others. :-/

Sunday and starlings

I was waiting at a stoplight recently and had the chance to watch a ball of starlings fly through the sky, bouncing in all directions but never touching the ground. A crow was in the air too and that ball of birds decided to bounce toward that crow, and just when they were about to encircle it, they quickly flew off in a completely different direction but then....they turned around to head off that crow....almost. Starlings are such little stinkers. They're too smart and they're too fast for anyone to figure out what they're doing or where they're going to be next. Another time when I was driving, a ball of starlings (or "murmuration" if you want to be poetic) was above my car flying in the same direction, using the same route. They whooshed over me and then scattered in the distance. It all happened so fast but for a few seconds there I felt like I was part of the flock. It was thrilling. Nothing as thrilling as this little video though. Nothing. They're such astonishing little creatures.

Sunday morning with Starlinka

As bad as Stella is, Starlinka is her counterpart in goodness. Starlinka has never done anything bad in her entire life. She is always full of sweetness and light. And when she chooses to mimic something I say, it's always a compliment (my favorite being "You're so smart.").

Several years ago Starlinka started chewing the feathers on one of her wings so until she molted again, she was unable to fly...for years. That molt took a long time to get started. But now that she's able to fly again, it's bath time every weekend morning. There's a lot of hopping and flying around between my shoulder and wrist while I fill her bath dish with water in the sink. It has to be the right temperature. Sometimes she prefers water that's cold, sometimes something much warmer. She's very enthusiastic with the water so it becomes bath time for me too. She taught me early on that she likes baths and she likes showers and if she can have both at the same time, that is what she expects. I run the water in the sink and hold the bowl under it while it fills, and Starlinka jumps in and would empty it in no time if the water wasn't kept running.

And then it's drying time. I go sit at the computer and she chooses to sit on my shoulder while she shakes and preens and presses herself next to my neck to get further warmed up. It's pretty cute to have that little warm bird spend so many hours with me in the morning. Many times I'll forget she's even there until I feel her beak poke in my ear and then hear her say, "Whatcha doin'?"

Like I said, that girl has never done anything bad in her life except for last night and it could hardly be called bad if it was any other bird but Starlinka. I made dinner last night and she flew over and grabbed a bean and flew off. That wouldn't be too upsetting in this household but that food was hot and if she swallowed it, she would burn herself. So I chased her and chased her to retrieve that bean in her beak but that was too much fun for her. She'd hop on my hand but as soon as I reached for the bean, she was off again. At one point she just swallowed it. And then there was not such a good look on her. She opened her beak wide and I handed her her water dish. She immediately drank a couple sips and then a couple more sips and then a couple more and then everything seemed all right with her. This morning (whew!)...everything seems to be completely all right too. Relief. I'm thinking all that running and flying around cooled that bean down enough so that it couldn't hurt her. The little scamp. One thing I know, when it comes to bad behavior, she will never be able to compete with Stella. There's only one StellaFullaHella. Thank Gawd. But for Starlinka, everyone should have such a sweet little bird in their life who tells them they are beautiful, cute and smart all day long. :-)

Sunday morning breakfast wars

I was busy cleaning Shugg's cage this morning when Cathy Jean came over to help.

But that turned out not to be her intention at all. She wanted breakfast. Immediately. She gave me an extra long "Stop what you're doing and get me my breakfast now" look.

"Extra corn on my plate.....................please."

And then Michael Ray showed up from behind.

He wanted his breakfast faster than Cathy Jean's "now."

Thus, the "look."

Message delivered. The turtles split up and ran off in different directions (probably to see who would get served first).

Shugg could care less about what was going on in TurtleWorld. He had just had a bath (starlings adore baths of any kind), he had a clean cage and he was about to get served his breakfast before the turtles got theirs.

Shugg is the smartest, most fearless of birds. And there is nothing better on a Sunday morning than to have everything all clean and fresh and then have breakfast outdoors.

If you were wondering where Violet was in all this morning drama, Violet couldn't be a helper because she was stuck indoors because of an operation she had earlier in the week to remove a small tumor. I am 100% confident that she will be perfectly fine as soon as she heals but in the meantime, it's a sad thing to have to watch a cat maneuver around with a lampshade on her head.

But things aren't toooooo bad if you look at it from the other animals' points of view. It was close to noon and she had already had two breakfasts. And when the turtles were finally served their breakfast, Violet was already enjoying an early lunch.

An Introduction to Babe and Shugg

Babe and Shugg came to live with me temporarily some time ago because Sarah was having a baby and building a house at the same time. I told Sarah I'd watch her birds for as long as it took for her life to settle down (ha! like that will ever happen). Well, it's now time for Babe and Shugg to return to Redbud Ranch and I am going to miss them a lot, so much so that I've been stalling on their return. :-) Really, you could not ask for better guests.

Sarah describes Babe as a butter biscuit. That's exactly what he is, just a good, good sweet bird. Perfect in every way except for one thing. Just one thing but it's a good one. There's one sound he makes when he needs some immediate face to face time. It's the exact sound of a smoke alarm...the pitch, the volume, and it keeps going for about the length of time you need to find a ladder to turn the damn thing off if he really was a smoke alarm. He duplicates that annoying sound perfectly (apparently the smoke alarm must go off pretty often at Redbud Ranch if he's so good at imitating it-ha ha ha). That is the only thing I won't miss about Babe.

I wake up every weekend morning to the sound of Babe belting out the smoke alarm, (sometimes on weekdays too-ha ha ha). If it takes me thirty minutes to get out of bed, well that's what it takes. While Babe is belting out the smoke alarm, Stella is belting out her security alarm. Approximately one minute of "beep, beep, beep, beep, beep," etc. and then a short rest and then it's time to repeat. I also have Eddie calling out "Judy (her name for me which is not my real name)" with a few "hellos" that come out as questions. It's pretty amazing. I really can sleep through all of that. I have never had a problem falling asleep but I do have a problem waking up, even when I have that many "alarms" going off at nearly the same time.

But when I finally do get up, everything is quiet again until Shugg shares the one sound he has picked up from me. Shugg has noticed that I blow my nose first thing in the morning (I was NOT aware of that) and so as soon as I enter the room where the birds are, I get to hear a lot of nose blowing. Fabulous.

I've been living with perfect imitations of Sarah's household noises for some time now. Shugg's favorite word is an urgent sounding "Terry," the name of Sarah's husband (apparently he hears that a lot). Shugg also imitates Sarah's cell phone. Babe right now is imitating the keypad of Sarah's security alarm. Both birds imitate the sounds of birds that live in the country in Kansas.

I've been living with those sounds for quite a while and now when Babe and Shugg return to Redbud Ranch, Sarah will have to listen to my nose blowing and whatever other sounds they've picked up from around here.......forEVER. Ha ha ha.

I'm still going to miss them though.

What is beauty?

I was asked that yesterday and I'm still trying to figure out the answer. By complete happenstance I got to meet Martha Rich (and Esther Pearl Watson) when they were visiting where I work. These two artists got a grant to go on a "beauty road trip" as research for a multimedia art project that they will later put together and exhibit. I can't think of a more fun thing to do or really, something more worthwhile than to find beauty in yourself and the other people you meet along the way. Especially when you live in the LA area where the idea of beauty is probably so much different than everyone else's in their isolated pockets of the U.S. (or then, maybe not). I tend to read discovered blogs backwards and I've only gotten as far as Marfa, TX (in their road trip blog) where apparently everyone owns a chainsaw (or two) and life is supernatural at night. It sounds like one fabulous adventure. And those girls were sporting some f*a*b*u*l*o*u*s nails from their beauty experience in Pittsburgh, PA.

So I tried to describe my thoughts on beauty and out came something about the honest true essence of something or something along that line and not sounding anything even mildly coherent but I still sort of believe what I tried to say, if I knew what I was talking about. Errrrgh. I thought I sounded stupid but Martha said I didn't but.... really, I sounded stupid. But then.......then......I started to talk about those damn grasshoppers. WTH? About the moulted shell that I photographed the day before. About how transfixed I was with photographing the fresh grasshopper and its shell and that I did not realize until I turned to go back into the house, that a spider had used my head as an anchor for its own giant art project (I had to fight the web to get back indoors). Gawd. What is it with me and those grasshoppers?

Sherry says that grasshoppers represent the power to leap forward, that we should trust our inner voice and act upon it. And I am so ready at this stage of my life to figure out what that next change should be and go for it confidently. But then.....my grasshoppers are all high from eating datura all summer so I'm not sure what kind of symbol that would make them. Stagger forward and drink more wine? I guess that works too.

But I am still fascinated with the little stinkers. After looking at that shell of the grasshopper with all its hairs formerly encapsulated, the eyes, etc., their construction is an amazing design. It's fascinating. When you get to really understand something and just really look at the thing for what it is (and not get freaked out which is my normal way of dealing with grasshoppers), is that beauty?

I think I'll still stick with my incomprehensible blithering about searching for and finding the true nature of something but add one more thing. I think the one thing that I search for in myself (and in others if I can detect it...but usually not) is to find the real part of me that does not have some aspect of trying to please whoever may be in the back of my mind-family, friends, the art directors, people at work, etc. Just my own voice, whatever that is these days.

Valerie always said when it comes to art (or probably anything) you have to please yourself first. And I guess that's the thing I've lost and have been searching for (corporate life can really wear you down).

Do I ever start with the easy solution? No, never. Here's the dictionary definition of beauty...

...the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest).

Well, no doubt I'll keep thinking about this beauty thing AND grasshoppers tomorrow but for the above definition, one little bird friend comes to mind. My darling Starlinka. Everything about her can be described with the above definition. And her favorite word is the word "beautiful." She is beautiful, I am beautiful, Eddie is beautiful, her feathers are beautful, her eyes are beautiful, Starlinka tries to fit the word beautiful into just about every one of her sentences. So, I may not know what beauty is but I live with a little bird who does and sees it everywhere.

A pre-introduction to Starlinka

Emma and Ellie have requested an introduction to Starlinka but I don't have any good pictures of her yet (hopefully tomorrow or soon). But in the meantime, Starlinka did pose for the poster I did for last year's Kansas City Irish Fest. And by the way-this year's Irish Fest is going on right now (right this minute!!) so if you're in the KC area, think about going, if just to watch The Elders perform because they are fabulous! Just watch out for little girls that can't contain themselves anymore and then burst out in front of you with their step dancing enthusiasm. You could get hurt. :-)

Last year there was a contest to name the Irish Fest cow and Teresa Sudduyn of Oak Grove, MO was the winner with "Sinead O'Moolihan and the Tra La Las." I think that is a great name for an Irish musical/dancing group. Here is a close-up of the Tra La Las that were modeled after Starlinka...

Starlinka is a starling, probably the most common bird on the planet. If you go outside and look for a bird, it won't take you very long to find a starling. They're little black birds with white spots (or stars) that have short stubby tails and bright yellow beaks in spring. They're not native to the United States. They were introduced to America around 1890 by Eugene Schieffelin, a Shakespeare enthusiast who wanted to bring all the birds mentioned by Shakespeare to New York. Starlings in the U.S. now number 200 million because they're so darn smart and have no problem adapting because they're such flexible thinkers. Unfortunately, they're looked down upon because they take over nesting areas of native birds. They also poop quite a bit. In Independence, Mo they had such a problem with starlings pooping they had to remove all the trees in the square so the birds would stop ruining the paint on cars.

Most people don't know that starlings are excellent mimickers. I spent some time listening to a starling in my backyard one day to see exactly what his repertoire was. He made the sound of crows close up and crows far away, a car alarm, what sounded like a nail gun (there were a lot of roofs being replaced in the neighborhood that year), an ambulance and a lot of other birds which were not starlings. Starlinka has a pretty big vocabulary and has even taught Eddie how to say "Hi baby." I tried for years but Starlinka was the one who finally got Eddie to say it.

Mozart had a pet starling. It is rumored that when his starling changed a note while mimicking one of Mozart's compositions, Mozart liked the change so much he made it permanent. When his starling died, he had a formal funeral for it because he loved his starling very much. Konrad Lorenz, a Nobel prize winner, had a pet starling Friedrich who went on rounds with him when he was a doctor in a Russian prison camp during World War II. When Lorenz was eventually allowed to leave the camp, he was given permission to take Friedrich with him (he also loved his bird very much). When your starling has such devotion to you, you will very likely have that much devotion to it.

Starlinka likes to sit on my shoulder while I type on the computer but if it gets too late and she doesn't like the brightness of the screen, she will hop to my knee under the table and try to sleep there. Starlings like to get as close as they can to you but you are never allowed to touch them. Those are the starling rules. :-) Remember the M C Hammer song "U Can't Touch This"? That could be the starling anthem.