Horrible Hounds

This week has been one of sleep deprivation. In between the unseasonable thunderstorms, the (expletive) dogs have taken to nocturnal horse-bothering on a semi-professional level. I will shortly be getting t-shirts made - red ones for our lot and blue ones for the neighbours' dogs: please do not read political affiliations into the colours - they are just colours and they belong to everyone. (Always a tremendous source of amusement that immediately following a change of local government the public trash cans are over-painted with the new party's colours. In fact, 24 layers of alternating blue and red paint are probably all that's holding most of them together.)
Sorry - I have deviated from my complaint-track. Whilst the dogs are merrily chasing horses in that useless, floppy, grinning, oblivious way that only dogs can pull off, the local possum population have been advertising our hen-house as the latest KFC franchise. Feeling I had done my bit with the heron-proofing, I set the workers on possum-proofing the place. Wholly satisfied with their chicken-wire patches, I sent them home, waited til dark and, once all and sundry were safely roosting, quietly closed the door. Actually, I quietly pushed the door toward the door-hole, but there was no way it's warped little self was ever going back in that space again. Wouldn't you think they would have checked that...? I know, I expect too much. That cost me another chicken that night. No amount of gyrating and torch-pointing would galvanize my stupid canines into chasing it off. You could almost hear them: "no way man, it's dark over there". Useless lumps.

Anyhow, to happier things: the new aviary is at last finished. Woohoo. Its first resident was an aricari (Harry) apparently injured by a sling-shot. Lovely things, sling-shots. I think every child should be given one at birth. Very useful, not at all damaging to wildlife or the development of a child's sense of responsibility and morals. Harry recovered and was released yesterday. The aviary is now empty and ready to receive the Veloceraptors - who are now both flying, and biting, and nastier than ever. Veloceraptor 1 is rather adept at tucking into that area just below your shoulder-blades that you can't quite reach. Even though you know you can't reach it, it doesn't stop you spinning round trying - I don't know what I expect to happen - one day my head will stay still and my body will move to the front, so I can swat the little burger? Actually, no, that wouldn't work either because my arms would still face in the wrong direction...
Ah well, never mind - this time tomorrow they'll be safely behind bars. Better add little orange jump-suits to my shopping list.

Man v Parrot (match in progress)

I know I've been quiet of late. The truth is I'm a little embarrassed that my plans have been thwarted by one stroppy red lored parrot. January was supposed to be the big release of The Three Stooges (Bonnie, Kalie and Kleintjie) with all the media attention it deserved (well, 5 lines on our website at least). Unfortunately, every time I climb the ladder to open the door to freedom, I am dive-bombed by Mr P who regards the release door as the entrance to his personal fortress, and all those who dwell beyond it as potential intruders. I have to confess, I did not see that one coming.
However, not to be outdone by a mere bird, at this very moment our Chief Aviary Constructor is busy welding up two more doors complete with feeding platforms and ladder. Let's see Mr P guard that little lot. Ha, see, still the smart one. For now...

Black & White Owl Rescue.

On Saturday a family in the Cayo District called us to collect a black & owl owl which had been caught on their barbed wire fence all night. Unfortunately, during its time hung up he had chewed at its own wing to get free and removed all soft tissue down to the bone around the mid-section of the wing. We were forced to have the wing amputated - a really sad event for us, as a one-winged raptor is not an awful lot of use to itself. However, he is turning out to be a resilient little chappie. He's alert, he's eating everything we offer and as of today he can hop onto a low perch and feed himself from a tray. We are not sure what we are going to do with a flightless owl, his quality of life as it stands is not great. The family who found him are keen to have him live on their veranda, and with time he may lose his wildness and get some psychological satisfaction from the deal: we are certainly impressed with his tolerance for humans so far.
We are resisting the urge to call him 'Ollie' or 'Stumpy'. I am leaning toward 'Minstrel', although it seems you have to be British and over 40 to get that one.

Christmas in Paradise - is basically bl**dy nice!

Christmas came and went with copious quantities of food and drink for us, and extra rations of goodies for the birds: sugarcane, green beans, precious yellow corn on the cob, papaya... And were they grateful? Not a bit of it.
Chili has enjoyed the attention of visitors: so many extra fingers around to bite. Chili is our current resident cling-on. Every so often we get a bird that fixates on one of us and refuses to be separated. Rather like a encouraging a child to say its first words, then spending the next 18 years telling it to be quiet, we will encourage a clingy bird to fly by standing just out of reach until it makes that first flight to our shoulder. We then spend then next couple of months tiptoeing past the cage or tree, or running into the house for five minutes peace before he spots us. Chili is now at the stage where he will fly the 500 yards to the river to get to me, so there is very little escape time in the day. Typing this post he 'helps' by dismantling my pen collection and decorating my shirt with chewed corn, and worse... He insists on cuddles all evening and flies onto the bed the minute the bedroom door is opened in the morning. This may seem contradictory to the aims of our programme, but in fact this behavior doesn't seem to effect their release - to the contrary in fact. Mr P was our last cling-on, and Basil before him. Both are now wild and free. It's almost like the affectionate child - loves mum & dad but still ends up leaving home as a well-adjusted little creature.