Interlude

Charlie is busy ruining the cord to my hoodie. Krounchkrounchkrounchkrounch.

It feels kind of funny to be done with Guyana. Since December, it's anchored my blog, with occasional diversions for orchids, snow, power outages, taxes, April Fool's jokes, and good old Chet Baker. I never thought I'd go that long, writing and posting about one place--sixty-four posts, at last count. But oh, what a place, and what an experience! I'm dizzy with the thought of plunging into Honduras now, of mining memory's feeble banks for another long tropical adventure, even as spring migrants flood into Ohio. There's a dissonance there, because spring in the Appalachian foothills is every bit as luscious as Honduras in March. What's a blogger to do?

Lucky, that's what I am, just flat out lucky to have had the chance to go to South and Central America, and to have the means and this venue to write about it, to show it all to you. I wouldn't have been asked to go unless I had Bird Watcher's Digest graciously holding space for an article, and you, my readers, enough of you to make an audience.

I'm feeling particularly thankful these days. Thankful for my place in life, for a warm house, for my husband, who still likes hanging out with me, who makes me laugh like nobody else, and who has worked his heart out around the place this spring. Here's Liam, his vanilla Mini-Me.

Liam on the flatfile.

Thankful for my healthy smart children, who come to me with all the little mishaps and heartbreaks of the playground and high school halls, thankful that I can usually still fix things for them with a good dose of common sense.

Phoebe with her pets. Y'all have a serious, major, prolonged Chet Baker fix coming up.

I'm thankful for the peas coming up in my garden, for the little twin-leaved seedlings of lettuce and mustard and arugula. Thankful for the ovenbird who arrived and started singing yesterday afternoon. Thankful for the rain that's watering everything, and the south wind that's whipping all the little leaves out into full form.

I'm thankful for my friends, real and virtual, for the warm voice on the phone, the dinners and concerts together, or the spot-on message in my inbox. I'm amazed that the pack of them can make me feel so loved, even when I'm alone mostly all day.

And I'm thankful for the parrot on my shoulder, who smells of flowers and socks, and the warm, smooth little dog who stands on my lap as I write. His front paws on the desk, he straddles the keyboard, watches out the window for that darn squirtle who's been spooking around the yard. He knows not to step on the keys, and so does Charlie.

Photos by Chimpcam

That's something, to have friends like that.

Chet Baker, Tax Hound

I was good this year. I did the bulk of my tax preparation in January, surprising the daylights out of myself. I knew that, as onerous as it is to organize and figure up a million flying receipts, it would be even less fun in April.

Even if you have someone prepare your taxes, for a freelancer like me, the bulk of the work has to happen on your own desk. I crunch everything down to neat figures encased in little penciled boxes, and supply that to my preparer, Jim. I like Jim, partly because I can make him laugh any time. Much of what I do for a living actually turns out to be pretty funny.

Loyal to Rea and Associates, I don't patronize Liberty Tax Preparersno matter how alluringly Miss Liberty, the Bearded Woman, waves from the corner of Acme and Greene. I'm sorry, but this is a major economic indicator right there--a grown man being willing to put on a verdigris gown and tiara and wave all day in the freezing cold. There's one guy who waves, who won't wear the starry crown. I don't blame him. Then there's this girl who jumps up and down, tirelessly. Makes you want to get a paintball gun.

Right across the street, there are people walking up and down with giant cardboard pizzas on their bellies. I wonder what it's like to be a pizza person. It could happen. It probably pays better than being a natural history essayist.

Yes, this is another Chet Baker post. No, I didn't find him a new home. I have gotten three private emails from people about my April 1st post, in which I said we'd made the difficult decision to find Chet Baker a new home. Sincere, tearful letters from people begging me to reconsider. Remember when Tweety Bird would put his hands behind his back and bat his eyes and say, "Dey don't know me vewwy well, do dey?"I have had Charlie the macaw for 22 years. In that time, he has perforated me more times than I care to recount. He is a preferential chewer, which is to say he chooses the most valuable thing in sight to destroy, with books and electronics his top picks. He screams like a maniac, lunges at Bill's feet, kicks Chet Baker out of his soft bed, and poops everywhere. And I haven't even come close to getting rid of HIM. I love him. And I cannot think of anything Chet Baker could do that could move me to give him up. If Chet Baker had a rage attack and chewed off my left arm, I'd say, "Whew! Good thing I'm right handed! Here, Baker. Want a bikkit?"

So that thing about getting rid of Chet was a joke, son, an April Fool's joke, and not a very funny one, it turns out. Chet Baker (and Charlie) are here to stay, forever in my heart and home.

Like I said, I have plenty of help with my taxes.
You have me, Mether. I, Chet Baker, am here to help organize your receipts. What are receipts? Are they like bikkits? May I have a bikkit? Or at least, can you mess with me right now? I would like to be messed with. Or to have a bikkit. Your choice. Or we could take a walk. It is not that cold outside.

Chet Baker. You are very talkative, and Mether is busy today. How did you get the idea that it would be all right to sit upon my tax papers?Well, it is the best place in the whole house to watch for chiptymunks, up here on your table. Oh. Are these receipts that I am sitting on?

Yes they are, little Cat Dog, who is so fond of sitting up high and getting in the way of progress. But I am taking a break now. I would rather watch for chiptymunks with you for a little while than do this, any day. You smell like sunshine.

So I'd written this post and I got an email from my new bloggrrl friend Murr Brewster who writes this hilarious blog called Murrmurrs. She said she shouldn't be emailing because she was supposedly "finishing up her taxes"--we all know how that generally goes. So I sent her the photo directly above, of Chet Baker keeping my receipts warm with his fanny. Oh, sorry, Brits, his bum.
I wrote, "This is what tax day looks like in Whipple, Ohio."

And Murr freaked out and sent me this photo of what tax prep day looks like in Portland, Oregon:photo by Murr Brewster

Different animal, same idea. Sit on the important stuff. Get butt all over the thing they're working on at the moment. Then they can't ignore you. Now, we all know you can't pose a cat. And I beg you to note what's on Murr's computer screen. It is he, Chet Baker, whose fame stretches all the way across this great, expensive country of ours. Happy IRS Day!

Surviving a Country Power Outage

I must have known it was coming, a monster ice storm with a three-day power outage. On a trip to town on Monday January 26, I laid in food for us and for the wildlife that could have kept a whole regiment and all their pets fed for a week. Good thing, too. On Tuesday, I drove to Akron to pick Bill up, fresh from an exhausting trip to Florida. We got home just as the ice storm hit that evening, the roads rapidly becoming impassable sheets of ice. Tuesday afternoon, it started to rain on top of snow, with the air temperature standing at 26 degrees. We know what that means.
These are the kids' tracks on Wednesday morning, January 27, as they investigated the crunchy-glazed skating rink that had once been our yard. Photographed from the birding tower. It's been pouring all night and the air temperature is standing at 26.

One of those sneaky upper-level warm air masses was squatting over frigid southeast Ohio, dumping rain down onto earth and trees that had been frozen solid for ten days or more. Ice had been forming all night, a half-inch layer on every twig and wire, and I awoke at 5:15 Wednesday morning to the ominous sound of branches snapping in the woods, trees falling with a swish and tinkle of ice; rain pattering on a thick glazed crust of snow. Here it comes. I lay in the dark, marveling at the red glow of the clock radio, wondering what I should do to prepare for the outage, thinking ahead and behind to the outages before, knowing that when it came, this would be a big'un. I lay there a little too long.
At 5:58, the red glow winked off, and I hadn't so much as turned up the thermostat from its night setting of 62 degrees to at least start us off with a warm house. The dishwasher was full of dirty dishes. Blast! I'd have to do them by hand. And so much else.

We've got heat when the power's off, in the form of some gas logs in the living room, and our gas stove in the kitchen, which becomes an oversized space heater with the oven door open. That's it, but with curtains drawn across the kitchen entry, it's enough to keep our living space at 70 degrees, a huge blessing. (It did get down to 44 degrees in the basement, a bit too close to freezing for comfort...) Perhaps even better, we've got water, too, since we got gravity-feed town water about five years ago. And best of all, we've got an old gas water heater with an old-fashioned pilot, not one of those silly clickclickclickity electronic ignited things that needs electricity--duh!--to start. Having hot water in a power outage ROCKS. So Hard. If you can do dishes, get a hot shower now and then, you're really golden, because there are a lot of dishes generated by a snowed-in family of four with nothing better to do than cook rapidly spoiling food and eat it. We've survived a five-day power outage without water, before we got hooked into gravity-fed town water, and I found myself melting snow to heat on the stove to wash the dishes and endless Tupperware from all the food quickly spoiling in the powerless fridges and freezers. Yeah, two fridge/freezers and one chest freezer.

I can tell you that, however you feel about reading this blog, you do not want to be around me in an extended power outage without running water. In this one, with my running hot water, I was June Cleaver by comparison. Keeping my apron starched and cinched around my tiny girdled waist, my high heels clicking as I bustled about humming a happy tune. I will confess to hitting the wine about dark each evening. "Highball, darling?"A tree sparrow basks in a moment of sun.

The greenhouse is heated with gas, so life goes on there, too. Light comes in the form of some old oil lamps (the only way to go, much safer than candles) and our indispensible Petzl headlamps, one for each of us. Liam and Phoebe look really cute in headlamps, reading Captain Underpants or Calvin and Hobbes. Entertainment for the kids is drawing, reading, and playing together in the snow, and playing with Chet and Charlie, who goes from shoulder to shoulder cackling with glee.Don't be alarmed at his beak. It's not deformed--he's actually chewing the black drawstring cord of my sweatshirt here. He's ruined all our sweatshirts that way.
photo by Phoebe Thompson

All told, we're in fine shape, if somewhat cranky and out-0f-sorts as we shrug off our various electronic addictions. My major focus becomes cooking, as I don't want to lose all the fresh food I've laid in. So I got up Wednesday morning to a silent, dark house, started the gas fire, got down on my knees and lit the oven, washed the dishwasher contents by hand, and began cooking. I made a huge batch of spaghetti sauce and boned a bunch of chicken thighs. Started a soup with the bones and prepped a meal of chicken korma and stir-fried vegetables for that evening. Made the rest of the hamburger (we always buy family packs of everything) into burgers for the next night's cookout. Sorted through the fridge, making sure I had all the fresh food taken care of, and set a bunch of perishables out on the stoop to stay cold. Didn't want to deal with the freezer just yet. Which turned out to be a mistake.

Next: What do you do when it gets dark at 5 pm?

Macaws, Wild and Tame

Red and green macaws, Iwokrama Reserve, Guyana, South America

Macaws, as a group, are not the best dispersers of plant seeds. They're usually seed predators, slicing through ripe fruit to eat the seeds. When I hand a quarter of apple to Charlie, my chestnut-fronted macaw, he macerates it, reducing it to shreds, digging to the core. He obviously enjoys the apple seeds as much as or more than the fruit. Macaws are spectacularly messy eaters, and once they've dropped something to the forest floor, they don't go down and pick it up. Even homemade bread, right, Charlie?Charlie, my chestnut-fronted macaw (Ara severa). I told Charlie's story on National Public Radio back in March. He's captive-raised. He's been with me for 22 years. And every time I see parrots in the wild, I wish hard that I could set him free.

Plants make juicy sweet fruits in order to tempt animals and birds to eat them, and by doing so swallow and later disperse their seeds. They don't "want" their precious seeds to be eaten. So seeds often carry a toxic load to discourage seed predators like macaws. Ah, but the macaws are one step ahead of the plants whose seeds they enjoy. Tim Ryan's (ravishing) guest post about the clay licks of Tambopata shows one way psittacines combat toxins in their system--by eating nutrient-rich clay that also helps neutralize phytotoxins!

There are exceptions to this seed predator role, however, and an encounter with a large flock of red-shouldered macaws (Ara nobilis) at Rockview Lodge in Guyana, South America proved to be one. Several huge mango trees on the lodge grounds were coming ripe when I stayed there in November, 2008, and the macaws were all over the still-green fruits like the white on rice.
Ara nobilis is the smallest of the macaws, smaller even than some of the Aratinga parakeets (conures, in the pet trade). It has an accordingly shrill, cakky voice, and it was easy to find red-shouldered macaws wherever we went in Guyana, from the urban Georgetown Botanical Garden to the darkest interior.

This flock was putting a big hurt on some ripening mangoes. Eating all the nice flesh and leaving the seed to dry on the tree is probably not quite what the mango had in mind. Which leads me to wonder: what is the mango's preferred agent of dispersal? I'm guessing howler and capuchin monkeys, which could carry an entire fruit some distance away before devouring it and dropping the seed. Macaws are breaking the dispersal rules, but I doubt that concerns them. Macaws love to break rules (she wrote, gazing at the shredded pages of her Sibley Guide to Birds and Audubon Encyclopedia of North American Birds).

Other species, like this palm tanager, are the beneficiaries of the macaws' work.A palm tanager probably wouldn't be able to pierce a mango's thick skin without help, but they eagerly move in where the macaws have been.

This young red-shouldered macaw begged noisily from its parent, who was busy stripping mango flesh off the seeds.
Parrots in captivity are usually kept one to a cage. They rely on their human companions to fulfill their social needs, something at which we do an admittedly imperfect job.


When you see parrots in the wild, you realize how they were made to live. They're never alone, and what's more, they're forever messing with each other, allopreening and squabbling and playing and tussling. Family bonds are intense and long-lasting.

I watched and shot photos as best I could as the adult preened its fledgling all over. I can attest that the wingpit and tail base are a macaw's two favorite places to be tickled. Charlie raises his wing just like this when I preen him there.



Soon the rest of the family crowded around and everyone got a good preening. I was heartened to see this adult caring for three youngsters; glad these little macaws were doing their best to keep the mangoes stripped and the air full of their happy screeches.

It's been nice to write this post with a macaw on my shoulder, preening away, occasionally sticking his warm rubbery tongue in my ear-oo! And yet I'm wistful, knowing that he'll never live the way he was meant to live, in a flock of his own kind, raising his own kids and tearing up mangoes in the top of a tree. There's no way I can be a whole flock to Charlie, but I do my best.

Charlie on NPR

Just a quick demi-post to let you know that one of my commentaries aired on National Public Radio last night. It was a surprise to me--a quick substitution for something that fell through in last night's All Things Considered program. Titled, "A Delightful, Awful Marriage to a Pet Parrot," you can listen to it by clicking here.

As of 9 AM Friday, the piece has climbed to #7 on NPR's Most E-mailed Stories list, which means it'll make it to NPR's weekly podcast, and get heard by all the folks who are too busy to sit around the radio in the afternoon. If you'd care to email it to a friend (you can do that with a click on its NPR page), maybe it'll climb higher! All cause for celebration around the house. I hand-fed Charlie a big warm wad of mashed baked sweet potato and gave him some extra hugs and kisses this morning for sticking with me.
Though I've been braced for hatemail from parrot fanciers, so far there's been none. I got an interesting email from a woman who rescues cockatoos, thanking me for telling it like it is where living with parrots is concerned. "If you keep even one person from going out and buying a parrot, you deserve a medal," she wrote. She directed me to a site warning people against buying cockatoos. Though cockatoos are special head cases in captivity, much of what appears on this site applies to other large parrots and macaws. It's well-written and honest. I wish I'd been able to visit this site in 1986... Check it out.

Three Birds Done, Macaw Supervising

With the turnstone done, it's time to peel off some masking compound. I just roll it off with a clean finger, like rubber cement. Ideally, I've sealed the edges of the lightly tacky masking film well enough so no paint has crept under the edge. It's Day Two of painting now. I forget how many days I put into composing the thing before I could start painting. Let's just say many. That's the most time-consuming part, because that's where all the heavy thinking has to happen. Painting is something that either goes well or doesn't, but either way, it goes fast. Not to worry: this painting went well. So well, in fact, that I had up and painted the whole darn hooded warbler before remembering that I was supposed to be taking progress pictures. Well, heck, who wants to stop painting a hooded warbler to take pictures? I have to say, hooded warblers are pretty fast paints. I did his wings and tail first, then painted his yellow. The black hood went on right over the yellow and boom! he was done. I made it sound like the cloud painting went really fast, and it did, but the whole time I was thinking about where the lightest parts of the birds would be, and I was toning the clouds so the darkest parts of the clouds would be where the lightest parts of the birds were. This makes them pop out against the background. See how the warbler's white tail spots stand out against the dark blue cloud top? Elsewhere, I let the bird kind of fade in, as on the upraised wing. You don't want it to look like a cutout. As you can see in the photo above, I had already started on a male bobolink before I stopped to shoot a photo. I'm painting all his pale parts first; his silvery back and cornsilk-yellow nape. That's the proper order in watercolor. Paint light to dark.The black is blocked in, but the bird's far from done. Most of the magic in painting watercolor happens in the last few minutes, when you put little highlights of Chinese white on cheeks and bill and eye, and stroke a thin wash of it over the back to show light falling on it.

A word about light: When I showed this to my group of artist friends (in jpegs, via email), Mike asked about the light source. Where's it coming from? I scratched my head. Good question. The birds are evenly lit overall, and there is no strong directional source of light. The overall effect of the painting is of diffuse light, a kind of weird, pre-storm light. And to be truthful, I wasn't really thinking that much about where the light was coming from. I had a lot of balls to juggle with this piece. I was most concerned with the local colors of the birds, with making a graphic statement with their markings. I wanted to show their colors as vividly as I could, without worrying too much about cast shadows or the direction of the light source.

So I said, "Well, it's kind of a fantasy flock, and I'm thinking about the lighting as being sort of like the lighting in a Celestial Seasonings tea box picture. Too good to be true. You know, pretty...OK, I didn't really think about the lighting very much."

And my friends all said, "That's OK. It works for us."

They're nice that way. But the funny thing is, I think in the end it did work out OK.

And the male bobolink joins his friends in the fantasy flock. I'm so happy with the way the peach flush in the cloud is working with the bobolink's colors.

Charlie moves in to preen the bobolink's wing feathers. He loves to watch me paint, and seems to know that the image depicts a bird. And he gets a huge kick out of climbing down off my shoulder and walking around on the art, checking out each new bird as it's painted.

He's always most curious about the eyes. A macaw's tongue is very dry and rubbery, so there's little chance he'll smear anything once the paint dries, and it dries almost instantly in the dry air of winter. I have to spray down my palette every few minutes to keep the paint from hardening as I work.More birds tomorrow!

Alpha Bird

There can be no doubt who rules the roost in my studio. It's the one who bites the hardest. Mr. Vise Face. 390 grams of pure attitude, barely contained by a tatty bunch of feathers.

Charlie's great joy in life is to horn in on whatever Chet Baker happens to be doing. If Chet's chewing a Nylabone, Charlie wants that bone. If Chet's on my lap, Charlie needs to be there, too. If Bacon's sleeping peacefully in one of his four beds, Charlie wants that bed. Here's a typical interaction. I'm usually alerted to such behavior by the scuffling sound of Chet's toenails as he play-bows and backs away from Charlie. Sometimes there are Roo's.Here's a dog, peacefully chewing a toy in his comfy bed. I think I shall overturn the apple cart. It is what macaws do best.

This is a nice soft bed you have here, Chet Baker. Very cushy. I'd like to have a bed like this one. But I have an ol' knotty Booda Perch. Tell you what. I'll take it.


You would do well to keep an eye on me. For while I feign interest in your Nylabone, I might just decide to nip your Tennessee Turd-Tail. Not right now, but sometime.

What are you looking at, batface? I'm not going to bite you, just yet. But you might want to keep it tucked in. As if you could do anything else with it.


You are correct. It is time for you to vacate. For while I have not used my beak on you since that one famous nose-nip when you were a puppy, I still could. And I fancy your bed.

Yes, rescue your toys if you must. I'm taking over.

Very nice. Very nice. I think I'll keep it. Mether!!! He is in my BED!!

Ark ark ark ark ark.

Mostly, I have a good life. But sometimes I think Mether goes too far for a laugh at my expense. And she kisses that icky bird right on the beak, and he does not even have soft muzzlepuffs. She is stinky and mean and I am going to call a Boston terrier rescue group and see if I can get a home where I will be truly appreciated. Because this has gone too far.

Candy Wrapper Games

Autumnal evenings are when we come out to play. Liam has taken a great shine to Charlie lately, and it's mutual. I'm awfully proud of my boy for having the courage to pet a macaw, and of Charlie for being a gentleman and being affectionate with both Liam and Phoebe. It can so easily be otherwise with older parrots...they'll decide that they love but one person in a household, and nobody else can have much to do with them.

For both Charlie and Chet, anything can become a toy. All you have to do is hold it up high, over your head, and it immediately becomes an object of great desire, whether it's a stick, a tennis ball, a wadded up Kleenex, or a candy wrapper. In this case, it was a Gushers wrapper. Once Chet saw Charlie with the wrapper, he had to have it. There ensued a game of keep-away that kept us amused until well after sundown.
I should lead off by stating for the record that it's generally a bad idea to let dogs play with parrots. It's a rare situation where a dog is trustworthy enough to keep from squishing the parrot. The converse is also true: a macaw's beak can crack a Brazil nut, and you can imagine what it could do to a muzzlepuff. In Charlie's case, we think he got a good nose-nip in on a very curious Chet when Chet was very young. Chet's inquisitive air changed overnight to one of great respect. This established a dominance hierarchy that persists to this day. Chet is playful but extremely respectful of the vise-like grip of Charlie's beak.
The other factor operating is microbiological. Dogs have bacteria in their mouths that aren't found in birds' digestive tracts, and they can cause trouble. It's rare that Chet and Charlie trade saliva; once Chet got the wrapper from Charles, we didn't give it back to the macaw. For now, though, let the Candy Wrapper Games begin! Chet studied Charlie, trying to figure out how best to grab the coveted Gushers wrapper. They both love things that crackle when chewed.Go ahead, you hairy little Mama's boy. Make my day.

Finally, Baker decided a quick grab would net the best results. Do not ask how I got this picture. It just happened.Baker immediately set out on a victory lap. Note t-tail position--straight out. High excitement. A Boston's favorite game is keep-away. They get to show off their blazing speed and agility. Premise: simple. One animal has wrapper, the other tries to get it back. Liam tries to tempt Chet with a chewy stick 0n Charlie's behalf, but Chet's not having it. Baker keeps a wary eye on all of us while gloating over his new toy. He takes stubborn new places. Note Charlie, watching from his perch on my lap.Speaking sternly to Baker just sets off another victory lap. Charlie is crowing like a rooster at this point, thoroughly enjoying the scene of Chet taunting the kids with the coveted wrapper just out of reach.That bird does not need this toy. I need it. And speaking in a stern voice to me won't get you anywhere. You will just have to chase me some more. That's right. Try to catch me.and my favorite shot of the evening:

Oh, just keep it, Baker. It's all slobbery anyway. We'll play with something else until night falls. The heavy steel finial from the chaise lounge should do fine.

It's the little things that are the best.photo by Bill Thompson III

The Peace of Pets

photo by Bill Thompson III
Bill calls this photo, "The Crazy Pet Lady of Whipple." OK, call me crazy, but I know what I need.


Ever wonder what you would do, or who you might be, without a beloved pet? I do, all the time. They save me sometimes. We've all heard about the studies where researchers hook people up with a blood pressure cuff, take a baseline reading, and then let the person's pet into the room. A couple of caresses or strokes down the pet's back, and the blood pressure falls. I feel it acutely, and I look forward to those quiet times of day and evening when I can turn to my pets for comfort and slowing down. A little Shiraz doesn't hurt, either. That is a Baker noseprint on the lens, by the way. photo by Bill Thompson III
I'm showcasing the photography skills of Phoebe Linnea in the next few pictures. She's the creator of my new profile pic, and these were in the same series. Sure, Mom's setting it up and coaching her, but I hardly need to say much anymore. "Come in closer." "Now just the heads." That kind of thing. And she does the rest. I would have liked to wield a Canon EOS at age 11, but never so much as touched a real camera until I was about 21. Photography is just another of those things that she'll have grown up doing, lucky little thing. She'll have grown up with the instant gratification and education of looking at her picture within seconds of making it. I sent my film away for years, waiting a week or two to see what I'd done. She doesn't know how good she's got it. I love it when she reviews her work and comments, "That's a keeper."photo by Phoebe Linnea Thompson
I think about what it is that's so comforting about animals. For starters, I don't think I'll ever stop marveling at the fact that one can bond so strongly with another life form, one that can't talk or hold a verbal conversation, one with a completely different set of social signals and foreign yet deciperhable body language. Yet both of us reach out and we manage to bridge those gaps with ease. We understand what they're telling us, and they understand us. And here's this psittacid on my shoulder, serenely preening his feathers, and here's this canid on my lap, watching for lagomorphs in the yard, and I get to pet them and talk to them and accept the comfort and companionship they lavish on me. Charlie throws in dermabrasion as a bonus.photo by Phoebe Linnea Thompson
Here's the second thing about animals that I think sets us at ease. Aside from food, water, and shelter, their demands on us and estimation of us are pretty simple, and change very little. Our children are constantlly growing and evolving, and their demands on us change radically with each passing year. The bald squirming little grub that needed to be nursed every hour, needed its diapers changed, now needs a ride to and from basketball practice, needs to have friends spend the night, needs a grilled cheese and ham sandwich, but doesn't like tuna. The people we love all go through changes, walk through doors in life, and sometimes we can't come along. Through all the evolution and changes swirling around me, I'm pretty sure that Chet will be just as excited to see me come through the door when he's 13 as he is at 2 1/2, sure that the idea of a walk in the woods with me will always be the best thing he can imagine, now and forever. That, my friends is something.
And so there is a special peace and uncomplicated simplicity to being with our pets that often eludes us in the company of family and friends. You hear the phrase "unconditional love" bandied about; that we wish we could be the kind of person our dog thinks we are. We know our pets will always love us and want to be with us, no matter what. No wonder they bring us peace.
photo by Phoebe Linnea Thompson. New glasses. Whaddya think?

Charlie Checks Out

I got a call not long ago I'd been waiting for, ever since taking Charlie for his first veterinarian visit in--eep--18 years? I got Charlie in Connecticut in 1986. Connecticut's a hotbed for birdkeeping, with a strong Italian and Latin American birdkeeping tradition running through much of the populace. Charlie had a wonderful avian veterinarian in Dr. Robert Giddings, and we saw him often. On moving to Ohio, I found the nearest avian veterinarian to be 2 1/2 hours away, outside Columbus. And so most of the questions that arose I handled with phone consultations to Dr. Giddings. And truthfully, nothing's happened that I couldn't handle. I trim toenails and beaks, broken blood feathers, and deal with the occasional insect sting. When Sherri (of Raven's Haven exotic bird rescue and Magic the Hummingbird fame) told me she was hosting a bird wellness clinic at a Marietta hotel, featuring Columbus avian veterinarian Dr. Mohan, I leapt at the chance to have Charles seen.

Charlie: Please, may I see your finger? You could use a little exam yourself.

There are precious few veterinarians who see exclusively birds, and only one that I know of in Ohio: R. Mohan, DVM, MS, PhD. Needless to say Dr. Mohan goes through a lot of towels, since that's the way you restrain birds who can bite your finger off. He's really good with a towel.

Charlie had bloodwork done; he had a gram stain and a fecal exam. He had feather follicle biopsies taken, to see if there's any organic cause for his featherpicking. I knew that I had a healthy bird; at 386 grams he's a hefty little chestnut-fronted macaw. I knew he eats wonderfully, a varied and healthy diet, and that he gets plenty of love. Although it's hard to give parrots, who spend their lives monogamously paired, as much love as they need. But it was nice to hear Dr. Mohan say he tested out fine in every way for a bird his age (21). His flora and blood counts are normal. I'm especially grateful, having heard recently that Alex the African grey parrot, subject of years of language acquisition studies, died suddenly. What a shock, and tragedy, to lose such a learned, beloved and Very Useful bird at only 31. His last words to Dr. Irene Pepperberg: "Good night. Be good. I love you. See you in the morning."

So we're giving Charlie extra kisses and bits of ribeye steak,
and we're thankful to have his greenness in our lives. He gives me a bird's perspective on things from his perch on my shoulder as I paint and write. He breathes in my ear and makes sure my eyebrows are on straight. I'm thankful to have a macaw I can trust to sit on my son's chestand preen my daughter's cheek with his odd, rubbery tongue. He's even made room in his little parrot heart for that interloper, Chet Baker, and he's just as sweet and playful with Bacon as he is with us. What a guy. It'd be easier (and more characteristic of many parrots) for him to be cranky, but Charlie goes toward the light.

On these lovely autumn evenings we bring Charlie outside to sit with us in the slanting light. When it gets cold he climbs down our shirtfronts and chuckles in the warm darkness next to our hearts.

A Feast of Flowers, a Macaw's Birthday

Of all the things Magic enjoyed while he was a guest in my fledging tent, it was the daily influx of fresh-cut flowers. I had to come into the tent with camera locked and loaded, because the minute I put that vase in place, he was all over those blossoms. It was a neat opportunity to learn what he liked and how he approached each species. But then everything is an experiment for a Science Chimp, right?Agastache, or Mexican hyssop, is a plant that's come into some favor lately. I like it because even though it looks exotic and its leaves smell divine, it's a perennial, and it gets bigger and nicer every year. Hummingbirds love it. Magic found its somewhat floppy flowers a challenge, and he'd probe deep into them, bringing them from horizontal to full upright in his quest to plumb their nectar.
Lots of insects and birds enjoy the nectar of oregano. I imagine it might have a kick to it. Magic seemed interested in it, and visited repeatedly. You might not think a small, white, clustered flower like this would hold attraction for a hummingbird, but they feed on a surprising variety of different flowers. Buddleia, for instance, is something I'd always assumed was for butterflies, until I saw the extent to which my hummingbirds feed on it.
In between feeding bouts, he'd rest. It's important when housing hummingbirds to provide them with the smallest possible twigs for perching. I taped these fine birch twigs all over the tent.
Cardinalflower (Lobelia cardinalis) is a huge rubythroat favorite. Its blooming is timed to coincide with peak hummingbird abundance, and its incomparable hue is the best, truest red going in my garden. When you see a wild hummingbird with a white, powdered forehead, it's been anointed with pollen by the protruding stamens of this plant. My cardinalflower gets pollinated, boy does it, and the seed children are proof, coming up everywhere. I never thought I'd be giving cardinalflower away, but I'm almost at that point.
Time to stretch a wing and tail.And if you've ever wondered whether hummingbirds yawn, well, they do. And they sneeze, too, but that's harder to photograph. Maybe someday.I took these pictures on Magic's penultimate morning with me, August 17. It also happened to be Charlie the macaw's 20th birthday! I could do a "What is wrong with this picture?" post with this photograph. Let's start with the fact that he's standing on the keyboard of my laptop. He spends quite a bit of time there, but I kick him off when he starts preening, because I don't want greasy little bird sheath bits in my keyboard. Next, we can notice the tipped wine glass, right over the keyboard. Durr. And we can end with the Surgeon General's warning about alcohol as pertains to parrots. A no-no. But if a bird can't have a swig or two of King Shag Sauvignon Blanc on his 20th birthday, when can he? Ye gods, that bird adores wine, and he's got a bit of a taste for beer, too. Totally up to us to limit his consumption, which we do, we do.
Here's to 20 years of companionship from my sweet, irascible, tender, nippy friend. If my orchard oriole and Savannah sparrow made it to 17, Lord only knows how long Charles will party on. Wine and all. Love ya, Chuckles.