Scout Update And Fun With Papercraft!

So now Scout is 4 weeks old! She is getting along nicely, only favors the healing leg a bit and is getting to be a stronger flier. She is growing flight feathers at a nice clip and eats like a horse.

What a difference a month makes! She actually has a tail now and is good & healthy. She instinctively does that mockingbird wing-spread thing to hunt for bugs on the ground. She enjoys things like mealworms (and any other bug), nectarines, grapes, lettuce and tiny bits of people food.

Recently I've been having some fun doing some little papercraft figures--different from origami.  These are models that you print out on heavy cardstock, then cut out and assemble. There is a wealth of fun, creative and often complex and elegant free papercraft model printouts on the web.

Here are some Nani birds, the three 'bots from Silent Running and other assorted fun things.

Scout, hanging out nearby, was NOT impressed.

One thing I did not know--mockingbirds have long, whisker-like 'feelers' at the corner of their beaks on each side, you can see them in these pictures. I think they are sensing equipment just like whiskers on a cat. Interesting!

Scout's On Bug Patrol!

And doing a damned fine job of it, too! Last night she spent a good hour zooming around the living room, expertly and delicately flying up to tiny bugs on the ceiling that only SHE could see and snatching them up. Then she would fly back down to me, chirp 'Breep!' and proudly show them to me before gobbling them up. Heh. We praised her, of course. Every so often she'd miss, which would be accompanied by a loud, irritated 'Peep!' and a disgruntled return to the top of her cage before reorienting and finally capturing the bug.

She's definitely getter stronger and better at flying, which is a good thing. She is still a baby though, insisting on being fed every so often. We had her cage out back the other day and N. caught a june bug, which was promptly slipped into her cage.

It was like Christmas for mockingbirds! She lit up and started to madly chase it around, looking to impale it on her pointy little rapier-like beak. Sadly, it got away with a lucky fumble through the bars. But there's always next time!

Watching her last night was better than TV!

Mockingbird Is Go...

Scout, our injured baby mockingbird foundling, had her/his (who knows?) blue painter's tape splint removed today. She's using the leg fairly well, although it does stick out at a bit of an angle, at least it's not at 90 degrees like it was. She's even using the foot & leg to scratch her head and is flexing the toes a bit, something she was not doing days ago.

She also likes to sit quietly and look out the front window, singing little mockingbird songs under her breath to herself...like impersonating the peeping of the baby chicks and Jake, my sparrow.

Painter's tape works REALLY well for splints on birds, especially babies, since it will stick to itself quite well but not to tender skin or feathers. Cool!

Two Things I Never Expected, Both In The Same Day!

The first was when Millie, our 6 year, old diminutive Belgian d'Uccle MilleFleur hen, who is a great grandmother...started crowing yesterday. This heartily confused Phoenix and Scott, our two roosters, who wondered where the Hell the new guy was, and started crowing back. It confused me, too. I thought for sure that someone had dumped an unwanted rooster over our fence. Why she started this nonsense at her age is a mystery. I think just to mess with the roos.

The other thing was the little fledgling mockingbird baby that was sitting next to my back gate yesterday morning. Not only could it not fly, but it had a broken leg--thanks to the length of thread wrapped around it's leg. It is now safely esconced in a cage in my kitchen...the number of birds in the house right now was at 'LOL' level, then went to 'OMG' and is now officially at 'WTF'. It is eating well and has a blue painters tape splint on it's leg, which hopefully will help it heal at least pointed in the correct direction.

We are trying to settle on a name for this one, for however long we have it. Here it is:

Is that NOT the cutest little fuzzy head ever? I have no idea if it is a male or female, but it adapted to us pretty quickly and eats very well. I figured it is about 1 1/2 to 2 weeks old. We handfeed it every hour during the day up until about 9PM, it gets a mixture of all-purpose baby bird food, human baby food of strained meat, same with a vegetable, plain yogurt and a hard-boiled egg yolk. As soon as it's eating on it's own, it will get something similar but a bit chunkier, plus live mealworms.

Now we just need interesting sounds to teach it!

Was That...?

Our local Mockingbird has added 'Bottle Rockets' to his vast repertoire of 'Silly Noises To Scream After Midnight'.

T'was A Fine, Soft Day In The Spring, It Was...

...and I do believe that this time it might stick! We've had several false starts before now, single days of 75 degree, clear weather...then back to slashing rain, howling wind, cold and mud.

Today was beautiful.

Even the nectarine tree has finally been coaxed into bloom, albeit late.

Today was the kind of day that brings people to California to stay. The kind that makes you want to lie down in the grass and inhale. The sky was brilliant blue, the air clear, the day warm and the breezes soft. The songbirds are out in force, madly building nests, chasing potential mates and singing.

 The sage plant in the herb garden with it's snapdragon-like blooms.

I made a quick stop at the market so that this afternoon after school N. and I could have the first squirt gun fight of the season, along with blowing bubbles which quickly floated throughout the neighborhood. Mostly we lazed in the sun and pointed out the budding and blooming trees and plants to each other.

The blood orange tree, which we harvested just a couple of weeks ago, is beginning to bloom, but most of the buds are still closed up tight. I don't think they really believe that Spring is here to stay yet, either.

We did finally find one brave bloom fully opened, it will be another few days before that heady orange blossom scent pervades the air though.

Our little hot rod male mockingbird was sitting on the power lines above us, running through his song catalog. He still does the gang of crows cawing in the distance, to my endless amusement. We have more Phoebes this year, a cute little grey and black insect-eating crested bird that has a very sweet song. N. did teach herself one important childhood skill, with no prompting from me: learning to drink from a squirt gun.

Summer, here we come!

Mockingbirds Are Amazing...

Our local young fellow has a vast repetoire of very amusing sounds: your basic mockingbird 'twee-deep, twee-deep, twee-deep', a car alarm going off (complete with the pause and double 'boop-boop' of being reset), an imitation of an angry crow caw, a VERY fine imitaion of a whole murder of crows cawing--at a distance!, Starling calls, sparrow chirps, etc. The most recent addition is the sound of an aluminum baseball bat hitting a baseball, courtesy of the people who live behind us and their kid who bats fungo at 11:30 at night when the mockingbird is revved up and running through his calls, in prime learning absorbtion mode.

I recently spotted our mockingbird during the day, surprising since he starts singing at around 11:30 at night and continues until nearly dawn. He was a young, healthy, skinny little thing who was so bright-eyed and bouncy he looked like he was on speed and could go forever.

Oh, goodie.

Oh well, I wonder what interesting sounds we could teach him...?