By Mark David Blum, Esq.
All born within the past week, I am now the proud Daddy of five new baby Starlings. Though not much more than a large triangular beak attached to a small purplish prune-like body all covered with fuzz. Five bottomless pits of hunger and probably cold craving food and warmth. Swirled around each other in the nest, all my babies have found their voice. Not quite having reached the, “will you SHUT UP already” level, the hatchlings do respond to my own. They do their little shop of horrors “Feed Me” demand in bird talk. I still keep my distance until their still-closed black pea eyes open.
Mom and Dad are working around the clock. Once before I explained their daily routine as follows: Assume you have just given birth to quintuplets … five children all at the same time. Further assume that you do not have the ability to nurse your children but instead must feed them food from the store. To put your task in terms of how hard these birds work, it would be as follows: You would leave your house, get into your car, drive to the nearest market, take a spoon full of food from the store, drive back home, go into your house, and dump that spoonful of food down one child’s throat. Now repeat this same process for all five kids. Can you imagine how many trips to the store, how much driving and labor is involved, and by the time your kids are full, it is time to start all over again. Kudos to the starlings.
This process of fly and feed and fly and feed goes on non-stop all day long. The air traffic is busier than JFK airport. At the same time, the hatchlings are making sure their Momma knows they are hungry by chirping and crying out all day long. The noise at times can drive you insane. Shout at them to “shut the fuck up” and they get quiet for a moment. Just as suddenly, they return to their “FEED ME” colloquy.
If such was known to be my fate, I would have gnawed off my testicles at birth.
This morning it was posed to me how miserable was the day because it was Monday. Pondering my own calendar and coming off of a 30 hour marathon negotiation session, today was my Saturday. Even the Lord took a day off once a week. We who are not employed but employ ourselves do not live by the standard 9-5, M-F. My day off was not to be disturbed and planned a day full of nothing.
While responding to emails this lazy Saturday morn, I could not help notice the world at work around me. Everybody seems to be back. I witnessed and watched feed the usual gaggle of black capped chickadees, the one curious yellow finch, and the pair and battling robins. Those two fight and chase each other, you know one day they are going to end up in Bird Divorce Court … or on Jerry Springer. Something was pissing off the ducks who were running around all quacking and snipping at each other. I began to reminisce about a pair of geese I came upon in Albany one year; but I digress.
The homeys in my air conditioner do not allow the large birds around the nest when the babies are around. Cardinals and Blue jays are in the ‘hood but are chased off by a dive bombing starling. Same response happened when one of a nesting pair of mourning doves came for seed. That last attack pissed me off and I went out and yelled at the starling to not mess with the doves because I have a special affinity for them. Last year I rescued one and always wonder if the nesting pair that suddenly appeared this year is one of them. Mom just cawed back with a worm wrapped around her beak.
One interesting observation has been that if I remove the nest at the end of the season when they finally fly away, the adults rebuild the nest in the same (inconvenient) corner of the air conditioner case. If I leave the nest, the returning pair build in another corner and take apart and remove the debris from the previous nest. This surprising and innovating household cleaning habit was my way of getting them to rebuild in front of the door to the box itself. When it is warm and the hatchlings can see, I will be opening the box and they will be right there to annoy. I have already built up a maze by which the parents have to use to get into the nest to feed their babies. Little do they know what evil harassment awaits them.
I don’t consider it harassment. I do intend to get myself some redworms and feed the babies when I hold them. Perhaps this will help them trust me more; notwithstanding my Godzilla-like perspective to the petite hatchling. Can you see King Kong reaching down to stuff a hot dog down your throat and cuddle you?
One of the funniest moments was a couple weeks ago when I popped out one of the metal unused exhaust vent holes in the metal so as to have another access to the box. Covering the hole with duct tape, I hid the metal disc inside the box for safekeeping. One morning this repeated metal banging and banging and clanging was distracting my early morning quiet. Wandering and wondering wherefrom comes this noise, I found no source. A week or so later, when inspecting the nest construction progress, I found the metal disc dug out from under all the mess and laying inside the nest. I moved it and hid it again inside the box aware of its danger. The next morning, there goes that awful metal clanging noise and this time I found its’ source to be the box. Inside, I found the disc dug out and again laying in the nest. It dawned on me suddenly the birds were adamant about getting the metal disc out of the box but couldn’t work out the geometry. Once I removed the disc from the box and laid it aside, the disc was never disturbed again.
Other than the lovely strains of an occasional passing grumble of a 174th training flight or a Harley dropping its’ bag, I found the day one of peace and quiet. As I watch the birds about their chores on this almost sunny day, my fingers dance and write these words, problems too take flight. That or is it my sanity that has taken wing?
