How a bird in the hand led to two in a cage

Many years ago, when my stepson David was barely a teenager, he was coming back into the house from the garden when he glanced up at the roof and stopped, frozen in his tracks. On the edge of the roof was perched a white dove.

He barely had time to think, “oh, how I wish he’d fly down to me,” before the dove granted his wish and came down to settle on his head.

By mutual consent of our family and the bird, he made his home with us for the rest of his life. He received a name, Fotzel. That’s a term of endearment for a mischievous little boy, in the dialect of Alsace, in Eastern France, which was the mother tongue of both David and his mother, my wife Danielle.

Fotzel on the wing

Danielle is good with birds, as she is with animals generally, or with plants, and indeed with us. She decided that what Fotzel needed was a companion. Or, more specifically, a mate.

She found one in a pub that had so many doves in an aviary at the back that they could spare one without noticing her absence. By this time, we’d built an aviary of our own, taller than a tall man and about as long on each side. It was enclosed with strong chicken wire but we’d made a hole in the top, big enough for the doves to fly in and out, but too small for any hawk to try flying in.

The female duly laid a clutch of eggs. But then, however, she decided that life in our garden was nothing like exciting enough. Maybe she’d got too used to the livelier atmosphere of a pub, though I couldn’t say. All I know is that she cleared off, abandoning her eggs in the dovecote we’d built.

Not a problem, it turned out. Fotzel took over, sat of the eggs till they hatched, and then looked after the hatchlings until they turned into healthy and happy adults. Well, I don’t know how to measure dove happiness, but at any rate they ate their feed with apparent enthusiasm and seemed disinclined to clear off, despite the hole in the roof which left them free to make their own choice on the matter.

I don’t, of course, want to condone incest, but I have to admit it worked for our dove community. Within a relatively short time, it had turned into a real colony, busy, lively and cheerful. And, naturally, Fotzel was its patriarch until he took his last flight, off into the unknown, at a ripe old age (as far as we could tell).

Fotzel surveying his domain

Some years later, David had ensconced himself firmly in Scotland, where he lives with his family to this day and their great satisfaction, while we had moved to Strasbourg in Eastern France. On our way to dinner with friends who lived in converted farmhouse in the nearby countryside, Danielle told me, “if they ask us to take a kitten, the answer is no. Got it?”

I got it. But that evening, when each of us in turn had the exquisite pain of having a tiny cat climbing our legs, using his claws for grip, we simply couldn’t resist the temptation – such as is the animal-lover’s perversity – and took him home. So started Misty’s fifteen-year stay with us, ended only by undiagnosable but disabling illness just last year. He followed us from France to Germany to England and finally to a well-deserved and apparently satisfactory retirement in Spain. 

Misty as a young lad
Always keen on choosing inappropriate receptacles to relax in

He did become a little cranky as an adult, something I put down to being dragged from France to Germany to England and finally to Spain. The crankiness left me scars which have now faded, but I clearly remember the scratches on my hands. They were often for unforgivable offences, such as stroking him without paying due attention to the process. I would make the mistake of thinking that I could watch TV and stroke Misty at the same time, a delusion from which he rapidly (and painfully) disabused me.

Still, he stayed with us, never showing any desire to clear off, right to the end of his life, nearly eighteen months ago.

Misty enjoying his retirement in Spain
and still as ready as ever to relax in odd places

Now fast forward to just last week. We had been invited to lunch with our excellent friends Pamela and Ian. When we stepped outside for some hors-d’oeuvre titbits and a glass of wine on their patio, they warned us, “oh, you might have to watch out. A bird showed up this morning and seems not to want to go. It was sitting on the edge of the sofa a short time ago.”

It was sitting there still. It was a budgie. She (for it turns out she was a she) was white with the faintest of faint blue on her back. She was dishevelled, not terribly clean and obviously not in the happiest of states.

Danielle, as I mentioned before, is good with birds. Pamela and Ian did have some seeds. In principle, they were for human consumption, but when Danielle gave her a handful, the bird hoovered them up with every sign of enjoyment. She also had some water. 

And after lunch (ours as well as hers), inevitably, we took her home.

That was something of a feat since we were on bikes. Fortunately, Pamela and Ian lent us a cat carrier. Danielle pulled off the remarkable trick of cycling with one hand on the handlebars while she clutched the carrier’s handle in the other.

By that evening, we had a cage. And as had happened with Fotzel, we even had a companion – or more than likely a mate – for the newcomer to our household. 

Our new resident, delicately attired in tasteful white,
and her new mate, dressed more flamboyantly
Keeping one beady eye each on my doings

I like birdsong, so it’s a pleasure to hear them tweeting in their cage outside our front door. A lot more pleasant than the social media activity that goes by the same name (or is it called X-ing now?) It's equally a pleasure to go out and see how they’re doing in the morning, even before I have my first cup of coffee. 

For the third time, simple serendipity has provided us with a new animal extension to our household which we’re happy about. Another unplanned pleasure, as I was celebrating in my last post.

By the way, since the second arrival’s a male, he’s inherited the name Fotzel. As for the lady in white, Danielle has named her Justine. That’s pronounced the French way, with the ‘u’ roughly rhyming with ‘oo’ in ‘boon’.

Danielle’s not certain how she came up with the name. I reckon it’s because the bird had clearly flown away from her original home and had probably been driven by the heavy winds we’ve been having lately, until she was completely lost. Then we luckily turned up and were able to save her from her difficulties, and Pamela and Ian from the problem of working out what to do with her.

Justine time.

Justine and Fotzel indoors
for a brief cage-cleaning operation