“We found this little bird lying on the ground. We can’t keep it at home because we have cats and dogs. Please, will you care for it?”
I opened the box to meet my new child. It already had markings I could recognise—it was a young Wagtail. From early spring to the end of summer we have at least one pair of Wagtails nesting in the Hoya on our front stoep. This bird looked bedraggled and weak. I fed it a few drops of diluted honey-water. After another dose an hour later, I moved it into a bigger box lined with polar fleece, covered it with a net and left it in the darkened spare room.
“Goodnight baby”—not a word from the bird!
Imagine my dismay when I took the net off very early the next morning to find my ‘baby’ missing. However, he was not far from the box, sitting on the bed under the folds of the net. He had tried to escape, just like Houdini, the escape artist—and that is how he got his name!
I prepared a hard-boiled egg by putting it though a fine sieve and ‘softening’ it with water and fed him with a straw which I cut into a point—the closest I could get to a beak. He ate well, albeit small amounts, every hour.
I would pick him up and stroke him before I fed him. At first I had to hold him as he wriggled to get away but very soon he learnt to sit quietly on my hand whilst I fed him. Eventually I put his food on the kitchen counter and, if I tapped with the straw, he would come to investigate. He quickly learned to pick up the food himself.
He never tried to escape again and we became absurdly fond of him.
We went to the farm for Christmas and he had to spend the day in a cupboard because the farm cats would have considered him a ‘gift’ from Santa Claus!
He ate little bits of meat from a tin of dog food and finely grated cheese—preferably cheddar! The Wagtails on the front stoep collected cheese at our back door. Often they come into our kitchen and we have to drop what we are doing to grate cheese onto the lawn at the kitchen door. The shrill command for "Cheeeeese" cannot be mistaken!
Our local Vet, Rob, lent me a ‘meal worm farm’ so that I could harvest two or three worms a day—using tweezers! I tried hard to be a dedicated foster mother but drew the line at picking up a wiggling worm!
My friends came to visit Dini and, once he could fly, he had the run of the cottage. Strangely though, he preferred to run after me and he would sit on my head or my shoulder as I moved around the house. He investigated everything I did and one day, whilst making a salad, I chopped up some lettuce. Dini loved it so I added that to his diet. He interfered with my cards when I played a game of patience and sat for ages looking out of the kitchen window at the birds that we feed outside.I read up all the information in Roberts’ Birds. Wagtail fledglings would normally stay in the nest from 14 to a maximum of 21 days. He had not been a newly hatched chick when he arrived and, after two weeks, we realised that we had to let him go.
I felt terrible. I was quite confident that he was the best fed Wagtail on the block but I was worried about his life skills and his vocabulary. I explained to him that he should be very careful ‘out there’ and that his main objective would be to find a really clued-up wife! He had a bath that morning in the shallow dish where I had tried, unsuccessfully, to teach him to drink water. When he was dry, I groomed him with a little soft toothbrush,. He looked so dapper—my little Wagtail son! But I had to be brave and he had to be free.
On the ledge where he was sitting, I opened the window wide. He walked onto the windowsill—I held my breath as he peered over the edge—and walked straight back in!
I took a broom to sweep the back veranda. Dini followed me outside and, when I had finished, he followed me back in again.
Oh dear! This bachelor boy was not going to leave home. Maybe his huge, clumsy mother was inarticulate, but the food was delicious.
My husband Mike picked him up and carried him out onto the lawn. Mike walked to the bottom of the garden and Dini ran happily after him. “Fly—you silly bird!” he said. Mike put out some grated cheese and, in no time, all our ‘boarders’ were there. Sparrows, Weavers, Flycatchers, Robins, Drongos and even two inquisitive doves. We put Dini in with them and he was quite overawed—not getting too close to any one of them.
Then a female Wagtail arrived and a small miracle was about to play out before us! She immediately collected some cheese and went over to Dini to feed him—but he wouldn’t take the food. She flew up onto the roof above the kitchen and gave two short, sharp calls. Now Dini hadn’t taught me a word of ‘Wagtail’ but I knew that she was saying, “Come up here!”
He didn’t respond. After trying four or five more times, she disappeared. We were so disappointed—such an opportunity lost!
And then, back she came with her mate. When they both called him he flew up onto the neighbour’s carport and followed them—into the wide blue yonder? No, into a nest on our front stoep! They only kept him for two days and now the nest is empty again.
Even our Vet says that it is most unusual for a pair to ‘adopt’ a relatively big bird—yet they did! Dini must have learned all he needed to know before he went off on his own. There’s a good chance that he could come back to breed in one of the nests on the front stoep. He will be most welcome.
Dini was a baby. He needed security, food and love. He trusted me to fulfil these needs. I learned so much from this little bird.
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