By Shel Silverstein
Oh, if you're a bird, be an early bird
And catch the worm for your breakfast plate.
If you're a bird, be an early early bird --
But if you're a worm, sleep late.
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I had a very nice Wednesday -- I got to have lunch with Gblvr and to visit the baby bird we found Tuesday, who ate and ate and chirped and climbed around in its nest-box and looked so much better! So it was a very happy afternoon. I took the kids with me to Lebanese Taverna, which they both love; between the two of them I think they ate seven pieces of pita bread. I got a platter with hummus, babaganoush, and grape leaves, which I couldn't finish, but I had help. Daniel was quite chatty during lunch, but when we announced we were stopping in a couple of stores, he reverted to his early morning I-am-not-here sullen silence. Adam was friendlier because one of the stops was a Hallmark store to buy a gift for our neighbor who took in the baby bird, though even he refused to walk into the store with Brighton and Vera Bradley stuff with me and Gblvr. I'd been thinking of getting Rose a cat charm, but I ended up getting her a cat figurine candle holder because she has lots of candles in her house and has been taking care of a feral cat in the neighborhood as well as the bird.
Rose has done a wonderful job taking care of the baby bird; she is feeding him from an eyedropper, currently baby bird formula mixed with a bit of baby applesauce and smushed worms from her garden, though overnight he got birdie Gatorade since he appeared dehydrated and wasn't pooping much (she said he got her up every two hours, just like a newborn). In the time we were visiting, he gulped down five or six eyedroppers full of mush, which appears to be more by volume than the bird would take up in a container. (He pooped just as much, of course.) Adam learned to mimic the chirping sound of the adult and the baby bird would open its mouth for him. We're pretty sure it's a catbird, and when I was looking for photos on Google to confirm this guess, I found this National Zoo article on catbird fledgling survival rates in Maryland which suggest that we definitely did the right thing bringing it indoors, since in this small study, the survival rate to eight weeks in the wild was only 14-29%. We brought over some cage stuff from when we had birds and will bring over the big birdcage from our two parakeets if the bird still needs to be in a cage when it outgrows its current one.
The baby bird, whom Adam has dubbed Itty Bitty Birdie, has quickly adapted to being handled by humans.
Here is Adam holding the bird...
...and helping Rose feed him.
I got to hold him too. He puffed up and tried to sleep in my hands, so we put him back in his cage.
However, even with a chirping stuffed bunny for company, he did not stay sleepy for long.
Soon he was jumping up onto the perches in the cage and peeping for more food.
He seemed most comfortable being held in warm hands, however. He gets to sleep with a heat lamp nearby.
Adam fed and talked to the birdie, who was responsive to his voice. Here is a short video of them.
In the evening we watched "The Blind Banker," the second episode of Sherlock, which I didn't think was as good or as enjoyable as "A Study in Pink" -- it also left me befuddled by fandom, which has hyped this show hard despite a surprising level of race and gender fail. I don't understand why Sherlock Holmes with a contemporary setting doesn't have contemporary women to go along with it -- are they really all stereotypical villainesses, chicks who get ahead by sleeping with bosses, helpless victims, or sweet secretary-types? I'd like to say that the Asian stereotypes were the things I liked least about this second episode, but in complete honesty, the Chinese circus is far more entertaining than the overlong boring books sequence, and the dialogue isn't nearly as sharp overall. It reminds me of many of the things I don't like about Torchwood with too few of the things I enjoy. We'll see if the next one is an improvement.
No Prop 8!!!!
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