Flying higher than all the birds in the sky (Part 3)...

Last Saturday, Freddie was at birds sanctuary again. he emailed with the details of his day.

Saturday was the first day the place was open to the public, so all the stuff he was doing, he was doing in front of an audience. Yeah, no pressure at ALL there.

First he had to fee the deer, ostrich and emu...by himself (No I haven't asked why there's deer at a bird sanctuary, mostly I'm giggling to myself too much to do so). This entailed 2 100 lb bags of food and three bales of hay. Oh and did I mention all by himself. This required two trips and more physical labor than he's done in the last two months. The deer and ostrich, which are kept in the same...range (?) were first. And the ostrich was standing right in front of the door, which kinda bothered Freddie a bit, cause he had to keep the gate propped open to get things out of the cart and the ostrich could have run out...never a good thing, especially when there are crowds of onlookers there. But the ostrich didn't. I supposed it's hunger overtook it's need to escape. The emus werew a bit more distressing, cause they all swarmed around him wanting the food. Having never been in the middle of a swarm of emu, I can't really comment on what it feels like, but I'm sure it's not pleasant. And the next time, they're supposed to catch the emus to move them.....does the phrase 'herding cats' pop into anyone else's mind?

He had to check on the parrots and feed them. This went well, until the end. Now I didn't get the whole gist of the thing, but apparently there's this cockatoo named Lulu (naturally), and she was intent on getting a piece of Freddie. he'd throw her the peanuts to distract her, she threw them on the floor, she was having none of it. Freddie ran to the other end of the cage and gave her a peanut, but as he ran back to the part with the door, she dropped the peanut and ran after him. As I said I didn't get the whole gist of it, but it ended up with him having a metal water bowl on the cage so Lulu could peck at that while he locked the cage, or something similar. And when even THAT didn't work, he had to bring out the hose. Not to spray Lulu, as that would have been cruel (incidently, if I had to change the food of a bird that would prefer to sink her beak into my flesh, I feel confident in saying I'd use a hose to send her to the back of the cage so i could do what I needed to do...PETA be damned!), but to spray on the bottom of the cage. She liked getting wet so little she'd move out of the way when water was being sprayed anywhere around her.

There was an unnamed cockatoo (imagine that) that wanted apiece of Freddie too as he tried to shut his cage. This bird, though, was distracted by a glove Freddie had, and the bird attempted to shred that instead of Freddie's fingers.

Also, Freddie was asked to help the owner catch two black swans. Freddie's job was to, using a large bamboo pole, scare the sawms towards the boss, who had a net. Yeah, like that's gonna work. The swans were more content in thier pond than they were scared of Freddie and the pole. So he had to climb up on the back of the aviary, which, in his words, "was in no way maintained". he had to climb over rocks and through a thorn bush. And still the swams stayed. So the boss said to forget it, they'd try it later.

He didnt' get to see some new arrivals, a baby screech owl, 2 baby mergansers, and a falcon. There are no stories about these birds, just a statement that they got them. I'm gonna guess Freddie didn't have any interaction with them.

After this they had to corral some escaped ducks. The only word I have on that is "which only half worked." Yeah, I bet. And then they went back in with the cockatoos. Apparently, two of them got out after Freddie was in there. this is a concern cause these birds can be very territorial, and we already know how violent they are about ripping people digits off, but, much to everyone's surprise they were together and chirping happily, no problems. So by leaving them get out accidently, Freddie actually allowed them to make friends. Ah, harmony abounds.

Next time, possibly emu wrangling, and more fun with Lulu the cockatoo!

POLT

I find these meetings to be a fairly mind-numbing experience, but Leo assures me they are Constitutionally required. - President Bartlet, The West Wing