If it gets in the way of enough people, they call you crazy. Sometimes you just can’t take it anymore yourself, so you tell somebody else you’re crazy and they agree to take care of you.
Since the mating, Alfonso is less hostile toward me. I wouldn’t say he’s friendly, but there’s a form of truce. Actually, to be honest, he more or less ignores me. I don’t know what Birdie told him, or how much canaries can get across that kind of thought, but he accepts the idea I’m not going to hurt him.
The nest building proceeds quickly now. They’re up and down, in and out, all day. Alfonso is allowed to help with the carrying but he isn’t to put anything in the nest. Birdie has definite ideas about how things should be done. He’ll come up with some burlap and she’ll take it out of his beak. Apparently, Alfonso only has the concept, he doesn’t have the skills to build.
When I come in to peer at the nest, Birdie makes no fuss and seems proud of herself. She isn’t exactly weaving the little strings, but she’s overlapping them carefully in such a way that it makes a compact, formed mass. Alfonso isn’t so happy about me sticking my nose into things. He stands on top of the cage while I peer in, and gives me his most threatening look. Birdie’s shaping the nest as a deep hole somewhat smaller than her breast dimension and turning it in slightly to close at the top. The inside is shaped like the hole for a small vase. Tuesday night I can see it’s finished.
On Wednesday, when I come home from school, I’m shocked to see the entire nest torn apart and strewn over the floor of the aviary. Holy God, what next! it’s enough to drive a person batty. The new nest is under construction. She’s more frantic this time. I think if Alfonso didn’t feed her once in a while she’d starve. It’s up and down, back and forth; carefully picking the right pieces out of the piles; flying up; placing them even more carefully in the nest. Each time she takes a moment’s snuggling to check dimensions and then goes out again. I can’t even guess what could’ve been wrong with the first nest. She makes poor Alfonso work like a slave. He’s getting no creative satisfaction out of the thing but she forces him. He’s playing hod carrier to her bricklayer. Twice, I see him fly up to his favorite top perch to do a little singing and take a rest. Birdie chases after him and forces him back to the grind.
This time, as she comes to finishing the nest, she starts fraying the individual threads into light brown fuzz. With this she lines the bottom of the nest and the upper ramparts. It’s beautiful. Then, apparently, even this isn’t soft enough, so she starts chasing Alfonso around the cage, snitching feathers from his breast. The first few times he lets her get away with it, but then he’s had enough. When she makes another pass at him, he gives her a couple good pecks on the head and chases her around the aviary till she flies back into the small cage and settles onto the nest. He flies in after her, goes over and feeds her on the nest. She stays there while he sings the soft, tender song he sang the first night I heard him. I know from the song that the nest is finished.
Canaries living in a cage are like human beings in that they’re not living a completely natural life. They have a life which is safer than natural life would be. For this reason, they don’t get enough physical challenge and experience in survival. Also, birds, which in nature would die, are kept alive by the bird breeder because he has other interests than survival, such as color or song or special shape or something else. Gradually, the cage bird loses much of its vitality, its capacity to survive.
For example: in nature, a bird lays her first egg and is so busy providing herself with food and protecting her territory, she usually doesn’t start sitting the egg right away. She waits until she has a full clutch before she begins bearing down and really brooding. A cage bird, however, has a different situation. She’s so anxious and so confined to the area of the nest, she starts sitting tight as soon as an egg is laid. This means, if there are four eggs laid, the first bird is hatched four days before the last. Four days is a big difference in baby birds and the big one gets all the food and stomps over the little ones, so they don’t have much chance. For this reason, the bird breeder removes the eggs as they are laid. He puts them back when the whole clutch is finished. He puts a fake egg, or a marble, in as a replacement for each egg taken, so the bird doesn’t get discouraged and abandon the nest.
I have my fake eggs ready on Thursday morning. Birdie’d slept in the nest the past two nights and this is supposed to be a sure sign. I have oil and cotton ready in case she gets egg bound. The books say sometimes a young female can’t pass her egg easily and tenses so the egg can’t get out. This can kill the bird. When this happens, you drop warm olive oil on the vent and massage it gently with a cotton swab until the muscles relax and the egg is delivered.
That morning I put fresh food and egg mash on the floor of the aviary. I’d been feeding them egg mash since the mating. It’s made of hard-boiled egg mashed in with pablum. Both Birdie and Alfonso really like it. As soon as she smells it, Birdie comes down for some. I go into the aviary and look into the nest. There’s an egg. I’m so nervous I’m afraid to take it out. I take deep breaths to calm myself. I have a teaspoon ready and I reach in carefully to slip it under the egg. I lift it out rolling, my hand shaking and lower it onto a cotton nest I’ve made in a small dish. I quickly put the fake egg in the nest. I’ve been keeping it in my hand to warm it. I know Birdie is too smart to be fooled by a cold marble.
Birdie has flown up to the nest while I’m doing all this. She’s watching me suspiciously. She queeps her most plaintive queep and that doesn’t help my nerves at all. After I’ve put the fake egg in, she hops on the edge of the nest, seems satisfied and lowers herself over it. My forehead and hands are covered with sweat. I carry the dish with the egg in it carefully out of the aviary.
The egg is beautiful. I put the dish on the window sill and look at it. The shell is a pale blue-green and there are tiny reddish-brown spots. The spots aren’t blood marks, they’re real spots. The spots aren’t dark, more like pale freckles. Against the light, I can see through the shell and pick out the outline of the yolk. It’s amazing to think there’s a beginning bird in there; that the feathers and the beak and the flying are in the egg. I wish I could be in there myself and be born again as a bird. I wish I could live in that nest and be warmed under Birdie’s feathers and be fed by her and snuggle with my brothers and sisters, feeling my wings getting stronger and my feathers growing.
Birdie doesn’t sit tight on the first egg, but she sticks close to the nest and Alfonso spends a good part of his time with her in the cage. The next morning there’s a second egg. It’s a slightly darker blue than the first one. Now, Birdie settles in. The whole of the next afternoon she only gets off the nest once. Alfonso brings food to her but her body needs calcium to develop the new eggs so she flies down and nibbles on the cuttlebone. Alfonso not only feeds her, he stands beside the nest and sings to her. Now and then he fucks her on the nest. I’m not sure if this is going to hurt the eggs she’s carrying or not. I consider closing the cage door, with Birdie in it, to keep Alfonso away but decide against it.
The next morning there’s a third egg. It looks more like the first one but has fewer spots. It’s longer and thinner too. Each time, I put in a false egg. The book says one is enough to keep a hen on the nest but I’m sure either Birdie or Alfonso can count to four. Now, when Birdie flies down to eat or exercise, Alfonso sits on the eggs. First, I see him standing on the edge of the nest looking in when Birdie’s away and I’m afraid he’s going to lean in and try eating the eggs. This is not completely uncommon with canary birds. I’m feeding them hen eggs and there isn’t that much difference. The book says that if by some chance an egg gets broken, it should be removed at once, to keep the birds from eating it. Once a bird starts eating eggs, it’s useless for breeding.
After the fourth egg, I put the whole clutch back in and mark it on my calendar. The eggs are supposed to hatch thirteen days after I put them in. The next morning I’m surprised to see Birdie’s laid a fifth egg. Usually a canary only lays from two to four eggs, especially a young female like Birdie.
Now
