09/01/04 Caught in the act!!!!

Can't trust anyone these days. Not even your baby pigeon. Turn your back for a second and you'll find it surfing the pigeon personals on the net !!!! >8O. Don't believe me? See for yourself!! :

09/06/04 baby not so much a baby anymore :)

I have been observing changes in Baby's behavior over the last couple weeks. First of all she is filling in and looking prettier now and less runty. Also her taste in food is slowly expending. She is now eating a wider variety of seeds. As a matter of fact she is eating all of them now except for the big round ones (whatever they are called). Those she just practice baseball with and pitches them across the patio (careful your eyes if you happen to walk by). OK I am kinda pulling your leg, but she does throw seeds everywhere when she is looking for her favorite ones and just sticks her beak in there and shakes it to rearrange the seed configuration LOL. Last but not least she is mean as ever AND can fly better and better each day. She now flies out of her cage swiftly in one nice "WHHHOOOOOOOOSH" and goes straight to the fishroom without the need for a layover on a near by stool. In short, she has become a non-stop cage-fishroom-cage flight LOL. (sigh) my little baby will soon be off to College and break my moooshy momma heart. :/ 

09/10/04 Baby's true identity is revealed..........         ??? A ROLLER????? 

Well I'll be darn. Sold some bettas to a very nice man who lives locally and guess what? He is a pigeon expert. Wait. Let me repeat this: He is a pigeon EXPERT... Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh God is good to me. What are the chances? So off I go with the bettas neatly packed up and Baby equally neatly packed up in her little pet carrier. I meet my customer and he offers to take a look at Baby. So he reaches in, grabs her and pulls her out in a way that only an expert can pull off. Somehow managing to fully immobilize the entire bird (the whole 282 grams of meanness of hers LOL) with just one hand. And not just any ONE hand, a completely relaxed one. Woaw. Thats' all I can say is: WOAW. I am speach-less (which for me is quite a stretch LOLOL). Wait... I am looking and looking, there got to be a trick. Some super glue maybe, hidden up his sleeve? Wait.. No, I guess it's all in the wrist afterall :). Anywhoo, here is Baby, still but peaceful, letting this wonderful, wonderful man (or maybe he is a superhero/mutant, for surely no human being should be capable of such incredible feat!) examines Baby, her wing feather arrangement, shape, head, tail, etc... And so this is his verdict. (Are you ready?):

??     Wait........ A......... What? ROLLER. A 'roller'???????????? ...............  What's zat? It's a pigeon birdy that flies and flips and keeps falling down while flipping like nuts. (?????????? weird ?????????). OK, so I can see where she gets the "flipping" part from (her mommy? LOL). Well, no actually cause I don't flip easily at all. Which confirms my suspicions: Baby may not really be my child. (Mmmmmmmmm... Maybe the feathers and beak should have been a hint) LOL. Meanwhile, the wonderful man keeps saying: "Well I'll be darn: She's a roller". OK, so it seems that that may be a good thing. he also adds tha tI am darn lucky because very young chicks usually do not make it unless raised by their real parents (BUT... I thought I WAS her real mother!! :(( ). And that pigeon that are hand raised make GREAT pets (yes, they do - when they are not busy RIPPING THE FLESH OF THEIR OWNERS!!!) hehehe... 

09/15/04 Not on the Atkins diet (thanks GOD!!!) LOL

Today Baby was hanging by the pool with me and I was eating a sandwich and a piece of bread fell (OK, so I AM a messy eater, sue me LOL) and Baby ran to it and pecked it but much to much surprise ATE it. Woaw. I guess she's not on the Atkin's diet after all and likes carbs (like her mommy)... Well, that's good. So that's one out of three, now let's try to introduce the cheese and wine LOL.

09/30/04 Is my head turning into Noah's ark?

Let there be flood said the Lord. Let there come the flood says Baby. I don't mind, I don't care, mommy's head is there to save my feathery little fannies :). It is now Almost October and I am still heating the pool. Weather in Southern California has been wonderful so why not? (Gas bill, that's why not LOL) Baby always follows me to the pool area, flying over the safety gate and arbor and landing on the edge of the pool. She will watch me swim laps for a while and then decides that she, too, wants to swim. Well, vicariously through me, by means of my head. So Baby will suddenly take off and zoom down and land on my head (while I am swimming) and perch there while I am doing my laps. Hey! It's hard enough to float as it is I really don't need to do a handicap lap LOL. Buzz off birdy! Invariably I 'unload' her once I reach the pool's edge but she relentlessly comes back. Once, I tried to slowly sink and she had water up to her belly and only then did she condescend to fly away LOL. Aquatic bird? Mmmmm.... Perhaps there is room for a daring cross of betta and pigeon, which may lead to exciting new betta strains...  Let me get started on that as soon as I get home tonight LOL. Meanwhile for your visual enjoyment here are a few candid shots of Noah's head ark:

10/05/04 Boldy?

OK, so I'm gonna change the name of my pigeon officially from "Baby" to "Boldy". I came home today to find my bird bold. A huge area on the back of his cranium was completely depleted of ANY feathers. And I mean not A-ONE. Nothing. Nada. Looked like the Mohave desert. I was quite worried about this cause I have had birds before but had never seen one lose ALL feather in one single area in a half day timeframe. Was Baby struck by an exotic bird disease? One quick (panicked) call to my pigeon expert wonderful man (see above LOL) was to reassure me. He, too was having scalped pigeons everywhere. He said it looked like Indians had gone through his entire stock LOL and that it was normal, not to worry. Well, OK, if he says so. Over the course of the next week, Baby's feathers came in (quite rapidly) and at first it was like a bunch of sticks coming out of her head (see photo - click on it for the full version, it's worth it LOL) - (making her look like "predator" LOL - well a "mini-me/predator"). Then finally in about 2 days all the tubes fell out and feathers opened up and "OH MY GOD" my pigeon is beautiful now!

10/06/04 Baby accidentally flies away from home

I was out front talking with Mr.181 when I hear a FRRRRROOOOOOOT and saw a gray bird, who strangely resembled Baby (complete with the missing tail and the only two tail 

"IS THAT BABY?" 

I run to the back: No Baby. And I mean no Baby as in NO BABY, none, zip, nada, rien merde de merde zut and all that good stuff (it's French. NO, really, look it up LOL). I run back to the front.

"WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS SHE?" (OK, so I tend to repeat myself when under intense stress)

"I don't know. I don't know, I don't know" (OK, so Mr.181 gets stressed when I am stressed LOL).

So I run down the street, calling my bird (Come Baby! Come Baby! Come Baby! - note: I was still under stress at the time LOLOL) and looking everywhere for her.... When I spot her. There. There where? There on TOP of that 2 story house across the street. All the wayyyyyyyy up on the roof. And I'm not THAT tall. Heck I can't even get Baby when she perches on top of my fishroom's Gorilla rack - OK, so I'm short.) Oh boy Oh boy Oh boy (still stressed), what am I gonna do now? Fearing Baby might decide to fly further away, or that she might fly back and get hit by a car while crossing the street I decided my best shot was to stand guard and talk her into coming down. 

Yep. It took a LOT of talking. 

20 min later I had her down from the top roof to the roof of the garage. So close (and yet so FAR). So I ran back to the house grab her food plate, fill it up with fresh inviting seeds and run back down the street (getting a good workout with this bird LOL) . Baby still in the same spot. I keep scanning up that tall pine tree, for that is the VERY tree where the huge Hawk used to sit to watch Baby (and dream of how he was going to taste her soon and ponder whether she woud taste better with a touch of garlic, or some lemon and pepper). Luckily he was on another culinary tour somewhere else so Baby, who in plain view below that tree was quite spotable, seemed safe. I held the plate up as high as I could (yeah, yeah, I know: I AM short ;) ). Even tried to lure Baby down by letting the seeds run down my fingers and making sure they made a lot of noise while falling back into the plate ("Yummmmmmmmm, yummy seeds Baby! Come Baby!"). At this point, the only thing that did come out was the neighbor (complete with shotgun), wondering who the heck that crazy lady who had been making the weirdest bird noises for the past 20 min LOL right in front of his porch, was (did I lose you with this oh so long and truncated sentence?) . Fortunately his aim lacked accuracy and he missed LOL. Oh, I'm just pulling your leg. I don't think the neighbors were home (or they are very deaf - one of the two).

Fi-Na-LLy hunger got the best of her and Baby struck her best "I'm about to take flight" pose and went FROOOT headfirst, diving into the plate in which she landed in a big explosion of a zillion flying seeds (watch your eyes!). I immediately caught her "Bad Baby! Bad Baby!" (I was already starting to destress, at that moment, repeating things only twice hehe). And Baby still on the plate, I returned home. A near by pedestrian said: "Hey, I think you are supposed to cook them first" ;P... Baby did not get that joke. She was quite offended. As for me, I was happy that I got my Baby back (rib rib rib?) :).

10/09/04 Baby gets attacked by hideous, horrible, mean, evil, hungry HAWK

Well, baby flying away from eth safety of our kitchen covered patio area should have been a warning sign for the drama to come. I pondered the thought of clipping of wing feathers again so she would not fly too far but hesitated and decided to wait a few days. Baby looks so happy when she flies that clipping her feathers seemed a bit mean, even if it was with the best intention: Saving her life. Was I being selfish? Of course statistics speak for themselves: Wild pigeons are rarely expected to live to see their second birthday. While captive pigeon that are well cared for can live 15 years and more. Kinda makes you wonder, eh, how come there are so many pigeons in this city? let me see: They mate for life, only lay two eggs, usually one one chick makes it and then if the canker sore does not get them, if a car does not get them, if a cat, a grumpy human, poison, pigeon traps do not get them, THEN the hawks get to get them. Whatup with zat? Where do all these pigeons come from then? Mmmmm... Government conspiracy? Maybe they are using pigeons for advanced cloning experiments and cloning pigeons and then releasing them and passing them for real pigeons cause none notices anyways, and no one cares for pigeons. I might be onto something. LOL

Meanwhile the week-end was upon us so Saturday, I decided to be my usual busy little bee self and take care of a few odd ball projects that had been procrastinated upon long enough. Hence I washed my car LOL. You know, the "once a year or so ritual" ;). So there I was, up front, performing my sacred ritual, complete with ritual artifacts (sponge, soap, bucket and let us not forget armor all the cure all of car ailments LOL). Busy as I was, I did hear something. Oh it was not much of anything really, just a little something... a sort of a frooooooooooot... So settle.... Coming from the side yard (where the pool is located). Yet, my mother's oh so sharp instincts immediately kicked in: "Baby is in trouble".

Cut. Now let's rewind and see the same action from another view point this time: From Baby's POV.

So Baby, proud of her recent "I can fly on roof tops now" feat, had become a little cocky. A little too cocky, a little too soon. Her cage door was open so what the heck, s she few out and flew up onto the roof of the house and paraded into the sunlight with a great arrogance only equaled by the great foolishness that came with it (2 for the price of 1). So pretty, so plump and oh...... so delectable. And also, so in plain view of anything and everything flying up above in that great, big, eternally blue Californian sky of ours. Well, wouldn't you know, Mr. Gourmet Hawk had been waiting for months for this and having heard of how he had missed a great opportunity merely a few days ago (the birds in our neighborhood do gossip a lot) he was not about to let another chance of eating 'pigeon a la creme' pass him by. And so in less time than it has taken me to type this, he spotted Baby's plumpness, zeroed in on it, and fell from the sky like a rock. And just as Baby was still bragging: "I can fly onto roof tops!! I can fly ont...HARGH" POW he came down on her taking the wind (and words) out of her beak and sending her rolling down the roof in a cloud of feathers. She bounced like a ball down the roof and rolled down on the ground, desperately flapping her wings to try to fly away. He was swift, fast, much faster than Baby's little molting nothing wings and kept ramming her into the ground over and over again. Feathers were scattered by the table, more were found later in the Jacuzzi (at the crime scene). Mr. Hawk smiled. At long last he shall eat her. One more blow and that would be that, he would be able to catch her, to latch onto her plump flesh with his huge iron scissor sharp claws. Wait, let me rephrase this: CLAWS. Much better. He smiled and he had every reasons to: Baby would be his to shred to pieces in just a few moments. Baby, in one last desperate effort to get away flew into the pool gate and that's when the Hawk made his final dive, and got her good. She was pinned down against the gate, upside down, him on top of her with his huge iron scissor sharp CLAWS now holding her down as he was about to start tearing into her flesh. He raised his head, opened his beak and....

All great plans have a small flaw. 

His had a 115 pound flaw. 115 pounds of PURE-RAGING MAD- TWO LEGGED FURY-BITCH FROM HELL-KILLING MACHINE- BLOOD INJECTED EYED-MONSTER FROM THE ABYSS-CHAIN SAW MASSACRE WORTHY-DEMON FROM BEYOND- TERMINATOR OF ALL HAWKS.... me  :).

That little pigeon of his had a HUGE momma and she was not taking lightly his little joke. He heard a sound so loud and so high pitched, a sound he had never heard before. A sound that froze the blood in his vein, turned the meal in his stomach, made his ears ring for days afterwards: Faith yelling at the top of her lungs. And that was SOOOO horrible he almost passed out.

Cut. Now back at the action as seen from my point of view hehe.

So I heard s frooooooooooooot and felt something was wrong so I dropped my towel and glanced at the pool gate to my left and what did I see?????????? BABY IN THE CLAWS OF A HAWK! So I freaked. And I don't freak very often. Actually, I freak very rarely so I save it all, bundled up inside me for the times I really do need to freak. And this time was such time. So I FREAKED like only I can FREAK, with such a FREAK intensity that the hawk FREAKED and dropped Baby and flew off into the tree nearby. I was running like a mad dog and the sound coming out of my foaming mouth was not even human, more like from a medusa from hell:

"OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD! BABYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY"

(note: the last "eeee" was pitched about 10 octave ABOVE dog hearing upper range). All windows and glasses in a 2 mile radius immediately shattered. The Hawk's head exploded as he was flying away as fast as his wings would take him. All the time I was yelling to him, and I quote: "I swear to GOD you ##%**# I will @*#! KILL YOU WITH MY BARE HANDS if you ever #@%## show up your *&##@ face around here!! I WILL @*#! KILL YOU !!"

And that was the last we saw of him. So if you see a headless hawk flying around, you'll know why. I turned around and picked up Baby in my arms and held her close to my heart. She was stunned and scared but I could not see any wounds, trace of blood or anything. Oh I was so scared when I picked her up that she would be torn up, but by a miracle of God she was intact. I spent the rest of the day thanking God for his kindness and protection. It was truly a miracle that the hawk and Baby would end up in front of the gate on the side of the house where I happened to be washing my car that morning (again this is not something I do but once every few months - usually I go to the car wash). And it was a miracle that I was able to react fast enough to get him off her BEFORE he had a chance to take a first bite at her. For his was mighty and large and surely would have tore her to pieces in one swift bite. I felt all fuzzy inside, while my legs felt kinda weak... I was quite shook up, but not merely half as shook up as Baby who spent the rest of the day with her eyes closed, all puffed up in a ball, not moving around, nor eating. I was quite worried. But the next morning she was back to her old self. So now this is only but a bad memory and another chapter on this page.

As for the hawk? He's still looking for pieces of his head splattered all around my pool yard by my high pitched scream LOL.

01/21/05 Pigeon becomes betta connaisseur :))

So how is Baby the Pigeon? She is very well. She is now old enough to assist me in many small  tasks/chores around the fishroom

    
See? I told you! I almost had her bagging bettas for me the other day, but her little claws kept puncturing the bags :(((... Oh well... I guess she has her hands full learning Dos and Unix right now anyways... ;)