Monday 25 June 2012

An update on the Collared Dove

It's been a while since I handed the Dove on to a wildlife sanctuary and by now the Dove should be back in the wild where he or she belongs.

I have written an article about the Dove and included a couple of photos I took of the bird. You can find it Here

Thursday 16 February 2012

For the love of a Dove

I haven't had time to write anything for so long but something magical is happening right now that I had to share.

On Valentines Day I found a young Dove in my graden and have since become its adoptive parent. It is worth pointing out that a wild bird should not be picked up immediately if found as very often the parent bird will return and care for it. That said I have so many cats coming into my garden that I really couldn't leave the bird there in safety. This was later proven by that fact that a black moggie was spotted in the garden half an hour after I picked up the dove.

This poor bird was too young to be out of the nest and the quills on the tail feathers had not yet broken. It made no attempt to get away when I picked it up leaving me very worried.

I put the bird in a cardboard box and left it alone for a while. Birds can easily go into shock and die of stress so best left alone for a while if there is no obvious sign of injury.

I had to rush to the shops to get some egg food to feed it on. Sure enough egg food and baby porridge are readily accepted. Sadly the dove is not old enough to feed itself so I am having to handle it a lot and syringe feed it. The little thimg is suprisingly calm for a wild animal which is great becuase it isn't stressed while feeding. This is not going to make returning it to the wild any easier though.

At the moment the bird is starting to peck at everythng on the cage floor so hopefully will start feeding on solids soon. Today it took its first small flight and while the landing was less than fantastic the flight itself was pretty good.

It is not possible to tell by looking if the dove is male or female so it still doesn't have a name. Suggestions for a good unisex dove name are welcome.

I'm going to keep reporting on the progress of the dove over the time it remains with me in the hope it will be a good reference point for others who find themselves in my position of caring for an orphaned bird or just for anyone who loves reading about animals and their exploits. I am also updating regularly on my twitter page @FallenAngel_483 and generally complaining about all th early mornings but I don't really mean it. looking after this bird is a really great privillege for me and I am taking it very seriously.

Saturday 23 October 2010

Poppy the boss rat

I love my rats and have already written a bit about my rat Pippa on my blog so now I just have to write about her sister Poppy. Rats are best kept in pairs because they are intelligent and social creatures.

Poppy is a beautiful brown and white hooded rat. She is the dominat rat of the pair and also by far the most intelligent. She is also much more sociable and much less destructive than her sister Pippa.

The reason I decided to get these two rats from the pet shop was Poppy. Pippa was hiding at the time but Poppy was trying to climb out of a hole that had been chewed in their wooden vivarium. At the time I thought Poppy was the one that had chewed the hole, although I now suspect it was Pippa because she chews everything.

So Poppy was there with her head out the hole and her legs dangling down inside the vivarium. She was holding herself up there with her front paws, an impressive sight. She seemed really friendly and that made me decide to take her home. She has a very charming face.

It later turned out that Pippa was the brave one and Poppy was much more nervous. Poppy is always waiting in the morning and as soon as I go in the room she comes and begs for her breakfast. She is also pretty accurate at knowing what time I have my lunch, mostly because she has learned that I will give her a small piece of brown bread as a treat.

Poppy hates strange noises and when she gets frightened she runs to the corner of the sofa and sits there all hunched up. She is also far less keen to try new things. It took 2 days to get her to go in a rat ball and she only went in after watching her sister do so several times.

The thing I love most about Poppy is her affectionate nature. You can guarantee she will lick your fingers and sit on your hand while you stroke her lovely fluffy fur. Poppy and Pippa are so different from eachother but thats why they get on so well and are both so special to me. I would urge people that don't like rats to get to know a friendly pet rat and see if they change their mind.

Thursday 14 October 2010

An awesome animal encounter

I just wanted to share the amazing encounter I had today in my own back garden. I put out food for lots of different animals and often get to see them from my back door on feeders.

Today I went to the bottom of the garden to see if I could spot any birds in the tree waiting to come to the feeder. I thought if I stood next to the feeder and stayed really still they might come and get some food and give me a really nice view.

I admit I was being a little optomistic but there are some birds that are more tame than others. So here I was standing in the cold as it gently spat with rain hoping to maybe see a Great tit or a cheeky Robin up close. What I saw instead was unexpected and hugely exciting.

I should explain at this point that I was standing right next to the bird feeder which is just above my eye level at the bottom of my garden attached to the fence at the back of my garden but slightly higher than the fence so the birds can see if the cats are about. I don't own cats but there are plenty in my local area and they keep coming into my garden trying to kill birds, which they sometimes manage to do.

So back to today and as I stood there I could hear a sort of grinding twitter sound coming from the tree. I didn't recognize this sound but figured it was some type of bird. Then out it came from the tree. A familiar face but not one I have ever been so close to. I have photographed her so many times from my back door. I have blown up the photos on the computer which led me to be sure when I say "she" because there was no doubt when I saw her today that it was the brown faced female that visits my garden. A female Grey Squirrel!

I wondered if she would come near me if I stood really still. I tried not to stare her straight in the eye because I know wild animals find that threatening. I could still hear the strange noise in the tree.

Gradually she climbed onto the fence and crept closer then retreated then crept closer again. All the time she was swirling her bushy tail at me. I don't know if this meant she was afraid of me or was trying her best to scare me off.

After what seemed like forever she climbed back into the tree and up on to a huge steel fence that keeps people off the railway line over the back of my house. She walked along the upright section of this fence until she was level with my head but about 6ft above me. All the time this familiar noise was coming from her. The noise I had thought was a bird was actually her and even more amazing another one was answering her. I couldn't see the other squirrel but I could hear that it was in the tree.

She came down from the fence back into the tree, apparently satisfied that she had checked me out from a safe distance. I thought at that point she would leave but she did not. She spent another 5 or 10 minutes crawling along my fence then hiding back in the tree, still swishing her tail around. Then she came within a foot of where I was standing, leaning on the fence, and she climbed up on to the bird feeder. I could see her so close to me as she put her head into one of the bowls and took out a Hazelnut. She hesitated for a moment, unsure whether to crack the nut up there or retreat to the safety of her tree. Ultimately she decided to go back to the tree but she did not run away she just left at her own speed.

I decided at this point to go inside and get dry. I had been standing there at that fence for 45 minutes getting cold and damp but it was an amazing experience I will never forget. It is so special to be trusted by a wild animal enough to be allowed to watch it in its environment doing what it does.

Not only that but also the fact that I never knew squirrels made noises. I still don't know what the noise meant but I will try to find out. I'm still just so excited to see an animal that close in my own back garden. What a special treat!

Monday 11 October 2010

Pippa and her terrible teeth

I have two female rats right now called Poppy and Pippa. They have such different personalities, part of what makes them so special to me. I want to share a few of their funny little habits to show what rats are really like.

Pippa was the one in the pet shop that hid in the corner and looked nervous. I was expecting her to be the shrinking violet of the pair but I have been proved completely wrong.

It is true that Pippa is the subordinate rat and her sister will reinforce this by having a little wee on Pippa from time to time and sometimes rolling her over on her back and pinning her there until she starts squeaking. Luckily female rats rarely harm eachother when they have disputes and this is the case with Pippa and Poppy.

Pippa is not a scaredy rat at all. She is usually the one that clings to the cage wires and chews them to attract attention. She will do this anytime, but especially late at night and first thing in the morning when she is trying to let me know she wants her food.

Pippa is not the most intelligent rat I have ever had, far from it. She really loves to run around in her big blue plastic rat ball. Most of the other rats I have owned quickly get bored in their rat ball but not Pippa.

Pippa loves to jump on my shoulder. She launches herself from an armchair and lands on me. On one occasion she just aimed straight for my face. I have never had a rat do that before and I now have to be careful to make sure she doesn't do it again. I had scratches on my face for days and she wasn't far away from getting my eyes. She didn't mean to do it she just didn't understand that she can't land on my face.

Pippa has one major problem. She chews everything. I even took her to the vet to make sure there was no problem with her teeth. She chews the cage wires, the armchair and my t shirts. Everything that comes within reach goes straight in her mouth. My vet has assured me there is nothing wrong with her teeth so she is just a really naughty rat.

Pippa lives to eat but luckily she is so active that she does not get fat. There is no fat on her, she is just pure muscle. She never runs out of food so she doesn't chew everything out of hunger. Her favourite food is cucumber, one of the range of veg treats that she gets a small amount of.

Pippa is truly unique and I wouldn't change her for any other rat. I just have to come to terms with the fact that I am going to lose a t shirt or twenty during her time with me.

Monday 27 September 2010

The Photographer and the Starling

Starlings are such fascinating birds. They fly around in huge flocks and can empty a bird feeder in a few minutes. They are noisy and messy and generally not the most popular of all birds which I think is a shame.

The two things that fascinate me most about starlings are their amazing ability to mimic lots of other birds. I once had one land on the roof of my house and it made a harsh cry that sounded exactly like a magpie. I looked up expecting to see a magpie, one of my favourite birds, and instead this much smaller bird was sitting there. It is amazing how that starling could make such a loud noise when it is much smaller than a magpie and how it could mimic the sound so well.

I have spent ages trying to get nice photographs of s starling with mixed results. These birds are so busy and never seem to be around long enough to get a nice photo. They are also far less confiding than great tits or pigeons, making it impossible to get really close to them.

I have a wonderful 20x zoom lens on my camera that lets me zoom in really close to animals that are far away. The problem with this is that if the animal moves even a tiny bit the result is a blurry photo.

I tried photographing starlings on my bird feeder when they come rushing in to collect a beakful of mealworms. I got some really nice photos but the bird feeder always looks so dirty it spoils the photo. Unfortunately I am a perfectionist.

I decided I wanted a photo of a starling sitting in a tree. There is a nice tree that overhangs my back garden where I knew they would land. I think in the end it took me three weeks of patient waiting, crouching in the garden every day after putting out some mealworms, until I got the shot I wanted. Every single time I tried to take a photo the bird was looking the other way, or it moved. I have a lot of photos of a tree with a bit of tail sticking out and things like that.

I did finally get a photo I was pleased with, although being a perfectionist I would like it if the bird was looking towards me just a bit more, but overall I think the photo captures the beauty of this bird as it sits in the tree and the sunlight shines off its feathers.

The following photo is the one I took. Being a 12mp camera I was able to enlarge the photo slightly when I made it into a greeting card in my shop so the original is a little smaller but apart from that the photo is as it was when I took it.

Thursday 23 September 2010

The Joy of rats

I might have mentioned once or twice that I really like rats. I have kept a lot of animals and I have to say I think you can't do better than a rat. I admit never having owned a dog or cat, or really worked with them much either, but rats are amazing.

I have had a lot of rats, most of them rescued. I have had babies that I got from pet shops and ones from breeders too.

I have noticed that males, known as bucks, tend to be a bit cleaner than females (does). I am not sure why this would be the case.

One particular favourite rat was Snowball. I rehomed him from a pet shop. He was quite an old rat when I got him and I quickly discovered that he hadn't been handled very much. He was a Himalayan colour, not your everyday pet shop rat, so I suspect his previous owner was using him as a breeding buck to produce show quality babies. Maybe he got too old to breed from so they just gave him away.

Snowball was a large rat and his fur was a beautiful white colour, apart from his nose and bottom that were brown, the typical Himalayan markings. He had to live alone because you can't put adult male rats together or they will fight to the death. All my rescued females were not spayed so he couldn't live with them.

Snowball took quite a bit of taming. He was not a vicious rat at all but he was not used to hands and every time I tried to pick him up he tried to bite. This was just his way of defending himself and not his fault at all.

In the case of a nervous rat that will bite I tend to find using something like a towel to get them out of the cage works really well. Once he was out of his cage he was no longer territorial and soon got used to the idea of sitting on my lap and letting me stroke him.

Snowy never became a cuddly pet but as long as he was happy that was the main thing. He would tend to sleep a lot being an old rat and slept on my sofa. At the end of the day he had learned that he was going into his cage for the night and would crawl onto my hand and let me put him home.

I don't really like to talk too much about the end of any of my animals but it is enough to say that he got sleepy and doddery like a proper old man. He began to go off his food and eventually would only take soft food like weetabix and baby food. Fortunately nature took its course and he died in his sleep before I had to make the decision to have him put to sleep by my vet.

What I will always remember about Snowy is the time I brought him home from the pet shop. I had to take the cage apart to get it in my friends car and had him just sitting in a tube which he could have run out of at any minute. It was far from ideal. When I got him home I just put my hand in the tube and picked him up. I was so greatful to him that he chose not to bite me that day. It was clear from his behaviour in his cage that if I put my hand in there he was going to let me have it.

It isn't ideal having to get your pet out all wrapped in a towel but to be fair to him he was a rehomed animal that hadn't been handled by his previous owner and he was perfectly fine once he was out of his cage.

Rats are not vicious animals at all. My current pair Pippa and Poppy are so sweet. They came from a pet shop but were babies when I got them. The shop hadn't handled them at all. They are so clever they learned to come out and let me pick them up. I have no doubt in my mind about them. They will not bite. They are such rewarding pets to keep and Pip and Pop both know their names so they come when they are called. You won't find a better pet than a rat I am sure of it.

Here are some things from my shop that feature a photo of Snowball so you can appreciate how beautiful my big boy was.
Snowball Rat Print print
Snowball Rat Print by Fallen_Angel_483
Browse all the art at Zazzle