Help!
Everyone, drop whatever you are doing this instant, grab the nearest coil of rope, a few lengths of sturdy chain and several pairs of handcuffs, if you happen to have any lying around left over from your work or perverted sex play. Perhaps a few sturdy gags would be useful too, in case I could manage, though properly restrained, to inch my way to the phone and activate it with my teeth and tongue. I have just noticed myself galloping off in a very dangerous direction and must be stopped by any and every means possible.
"WTF" ??, you say, "what has that crazy broad gotten herself into now?" Well, I am not into it yet, but I know the signs and it means Trouble Right Here in River City.....also in Valley Village, otherwise known by its less snooty inhabitants as North Hollywood. This is one of those cases where I find myself giving myself advice by saying, "Now, if I were you, Lois...." But I do not seem to be listening. Dammit, I never do.
Oh, hell.....here's the straight poop......it all began a few days ago when I went out to the front porch upon arising ......the porch wherein the nitely free buffet is set up for the night critters....... because I saw something a bit peculiar lying there.....a leaf perhaps...no.....horrors, a dead bird obviously left in generous payment for his buffet meal by one of my nitely cat visitors. Nature can be so cruel though I had to appreciate the gesture. Sorrowfully I picked it up and gazed in wonder at its beauty. It was quite small, bigger than a hummingbird but not by much and I decided it might be a type of finch which I see passing through my yard fairly often tweeting their lovely high pitched tweets. With a beautiful pale yellow belly and shades of pale green here and there....I had never seen anything quite like it.....so after being quite sure it could not be revived by a drop of brandy or mouth to mouth, I carried it indoors and put it into a baggie and into the freezer for further study later.
And then began the endless hours spent on Google doing ever more dangerous searches. Innocently starting out with merely trying to identify it among "finches" I determined that the closest I could come was perhaps a wild bird called a "goldfinch". And then my eye strayed to a sidebar item which said.....gasp..... Finches as Pets, and then to a more insidious and fatal entry, "Finches For Sale". Today, when my back was turned, I found my incorrigible self calling one or two of the phone numbers in my local area to find out about what they had to offer and for how much. To make matters worse, I spent the afternoon perusing listings for cages and pondering possible sites for setting up same to enable me to watch the little darlings.......that I have absolutely no intention of acquiring, you understand. None, Nada, Zilch!
During this investigation I have learned some interesting bits of info like the fact that, rather than an upright cage they require a horizontal cage because Finches need to fly for exercise and it needs to be in a more or less horizontal flight path. Nothing was said about landing lights or a control tower, so I assume the birds take care of those details for themselves. There was one article that put me off a bit by mentioning that, in addition to seed and things like hard boiled eggs with the shells mashed up for calcium, Finches need some protein like insects or live little worms. But other articles calmed my fears by assuring me that there were pellets available that provided all that sort of thing in a less wriggly way.
I was also warned that one species, called the Zebra Finch I believe, can be a sort of Nazi of the bird world, so vilely aggressive as to kill all the other Finches within his view and flying space, an event too dreadful to contemplate. But yet another article assured me that this can be solved by having at least 6 Finches in the cage. Perhaps the little fucker can count and knows that 5 against one is not a percentage in his favor. Who knows.
All fascinating stuff......but, of course, this is all academic because I would have to be totally out of my friggin' mind to even consider adding birds to my menagerie, wouldn't I? And even if I were considering it, all of you good people would grab your ropes and chains and handcuffs and gags and come to my rescue by restraining me in my madness before I did any real damage to myself, wouldn't you? Of course you would, so we can all sleep soundly tonight.
.......Oh, um, by the way.....have you ever or do any of you now keep Finches??? Just askin'.......
The New Yorker covers: January 8, 2018
13 hours ago
No, but my mom had a parakeet for years. It was a delightful little fellow who was allowed out of his cage and flew from mirror to mirror to admire himself. A squeak from a toy inside his cage and he would immediately fly back and protect his home. He had a vocabulary of about 100 phrases which he repeated every morning in the exact order they were taught to him.
ReplyDeleteBut you probably don't need a bird.
That didn't help did it?
Hi Lo
ReplyDeleteMy Dad used to have a large aviary at the bottom of our garden and he bred Canaries, Greenfinches, Zebra Finches and Budgerigars.
All this was really interesting to a small girl.
There were dummy eggs and round china nesting bowls, various types of seed etc.
I didn't notice that the zebra finches were aggressive and they flew with all the rest of the breeds, not in individual cages but in one really large area with an inside and ouside bit.
I think now with all of the controls he wouldn't be able to breed things like greenfinches or the zebra but in those days things were more easy going.
Another great post
Briony
x
I used to raise pigeons as a kid. I knew a lady who "rescued" parrots and such -- 50 birds in a special addition to her patio & that got pretty nasty for smell and such. We attracted golfinches to our garden with certain flowers & it was always exciting to see they loved it. But I think little birds around would drive your cats insane.
ReplyDeleteHmmmmm... Freddie would be a good name for a finch... or maybe Frankie or Freda..... I will mention that the last bird we had (a canary) got nabbed by our cat. Happened to be on Thanksgiving so we all got the bird that day. Keep us posted on your decision....
ReplyDeleteI accidently bred finches for several years, when the pet store said a pair would keep each other company. The female was a zebra; we named her Carrie Nation; she routinely dispatched her husbands. I generally traded the babies back to the pet store for supplies, but one baby finched saved my neighbors' lives when the one they took died overnight of carbon monoxide poisoning because their furnace crapped out. Eventually I stopped buying replacement husbands and Carrie lived happily her last several years.
ReplyDeleteThe Bird Lady of North Hollywood...
ReplyDeleteBut I agree with M.E. ~ a bird would drive your cats crazy!!
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Oh, cats and birds never end well. *gathers rope* I'm here to protect you from those evil, delightful, adorable birds!
ReplyDeleteI love the IDEA of birds in cages but when I have actually had such, it depressed me no end. That is my comment.
ReplyDeleteSince you have cats, be careful! If there is a way for them to get the cage open and get to the birds, they will, and they are remarkably clever about it. My daughter lost two parakeets that way.
ReplyDeleteI will be right there with my handcuffs - I don't need them anymore.
ReplyDeleteIt was hard to pick but I decided on "Perhaps the little fucker can count" as my loudest lol of this post. The little fucker indeed!
Oh, go ahead, get some finches. Let your cat name them. Your cat will name them "lunch" and "dinner."
ReplyDeletehahaa... love the comments almost as much as I loved your post!
ReplyDeleteI've had birds and cats together.. depends on the age of the cats. If they're kittens? or teenagers? oh, baruther
but an old cat prolly wouldn't waste his energy trying to get to the birds especially if he's well fed.
I had one cat who would sit and stare and do that fluttery gravelly sound they make when they see a bird. put a lot of bells around the cage especially the door ... cats don't like bells much ~ spoils their stalking ..
the bird will also make quite a racket if it's scared. raise hell... at least mine did.
I always envisioned Tweety and Sylvester... another thing about caged birds? you gotta clean the cages and they throw husks all over the place. untidy little toots
BUT if you're home all day ... watching the cats and birds and seed husk throwing and reading the headlines from the week old newspaper you've lined the cage with can be a fun way to spend a day.... not to mention the bells and chirping...
Think of the bird - either stressed out by the cat or unable to fly much. All of the caged bird species I've seen in the wild, -cockatoos, budgerigars, and finches. In country Australia they gather in flocks around the water holes and have a great time - sad to see a lonely one or two captive in a cage after having seen this.
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