Description:
PeeWees are a small to medium sized black and white bird about 20cm or 8 inches long. The upper parts are black with a broad white band throught the shoulder and along the front edge of the wings. The lower parts are mainly white with a black bib on the upper chest. The head is black with white sides of the neck and white eyebrow; females have a white throat and no eyebrow. The legs are longish and the feet grip strongly. These are ferocious little birds which defend their territory and nesting sites against much larger birds of which they show little fear. Their calls are a variety of loud piping sounds and in alarm a strident and shrill note. Mated pairs sing a more liquid version of the piping notes.
Peewees are found all over Australia where ever there is seasonal mud for nesting and open ground near to water for feeding which involves collecting larvae, insects, worms and fresh water snails.
Look. Here in my hand is a clutch of small black feathers marked with a spot of white at the tips. They were once the proudly worn tail feathers of Poppy the Pee Wee.
In the village next to ours lives a single family of PeeWees. They inhabit the gum trees growing in a front yard just across the road from a small tract of native bush. There is a little creek that supplies the mud that the adult birds use to build their nests.
Badger
The year before Pippy's story began the people who owned the front yard had sent out a call for help as a very young chick had fallen from the nest. Our dealings with Badger as he was named were to introduce us to Pee Wee culture. There are very few families in this alpine climate while they are numerous on the warmer plains surrounding the Blue Mountains.
They are a fierce and assertive clan who have no fear or love of humans. When we took Badger home he was fledged but his attention was still more out of the world than in it. This shifted over the 16 days it took for him to develop enough for us to decide it was appropriate to risk taking him back to his family. There was real uncertainty as to how the parents would react, but we had to try as being raised by humans is a last resort.
It proved to be a stressful time for us all. Badger had tucked his wee self into a corner of our hearts and trusted us to protect and nurture him. Upon release back in the suburban yard all hell broke loose. His family would not accept him and hounded him mercilessly from tree to tree. We left food for him with the people and reluctantly returned home, agreeing to return in the morning hoping the family may have changed it's mind.
The following day it was clear nothing had changed. The woman was distraught. Poor Badger had been chased and harassed by every passing bird but would not come down close enough for her to catch him. We stood beneath the trees with our hearts in our mouths as I called to him. In answer to our prayers Badger peeped in reply and flew gracefully down onto my hand. It was back home for a rethink. Perhaps his parents had already other eggs in the nest and he was rejected as competition. Perhaps they believed dead birds stay dead. They had demonstrated their distress well enough when he had fallen out so it remained a mystery. The only other explanation was that they knew he was carrying disease when he went overboard.
In the time between his recapture and the execution of our contingency plan, Badger developed blood in his droppings. As in humans this is a dire portent. We considered the usual and often ineffective course of feeding him antibiotics but decided against it. Badger was in our care but not under our control. Humans respond to illness from a cultural perspective and we are wary of projecting that set of beliefs onto wildlife. It was up to Badger. The days went by and the blood was still evident and our hearts sank. But one morning dawned when his morning droppings were clear, and so it remained. Badger had beaten the odds.
He went from strength to strength and the day came when we took him down from the mountains to the plains two hours drive away. There Pee Wee's are numerous and the adolescents congregate in flocks of hundreds. He could not be released on his own from our backyard as there are no families nearby and we were not prepared to subject him to a repeat performance with his family.
The absolute trust these young creatures have for us is poignant. Badger sat quietly in the cage on my lap as we drove. Every so often a peep would be heard from beneath the cover and I would peep back. He was just checking that all was as it should be. Now and then he would scuttle about with his beak in the cup which contained his favourite meal worms. I am not sure who was reassuring whom.
Badger was duly handed over to another carer and the next day released with another young Pee Wee. He attached himself successfully to the new humans and was support fed for the weeks until he slowly came back less and less often. And then not at all. He had joined the local juvenile flock and made his way back into the PeeWee clan.
Nine months later the phone rang. `It's happened again. Please come and help, I can't bare to go through the worry again.' It was Badger revisited. Ten days earlier we had rescued another Pee Wee chick who appeared to be healthy: he ate well but remained unsettled. Little Zeb spent the days scrambling around in his nest we had safely tucked in a cat carrying cage that hung in the apricot tree outside the kitchen window.
After a couple of days he began to sleep more and more and his droppings became less frequent and showed signs of kidney failure. We did not hold out much hope once we could see his legs becoming weak. There was nothing we could do except talk to him and keep him company. He died suddenly. His tiny body had been racked by a fit that left him with wings outstretched, legs stiffly angled and his head turned back on his neck. That year every one of the 17 odd Pee Wee chicks that came into the system died.
Driving to rescue Badgers sibling we had heavy hearts. In all likely hood we would be bringing home another fledgling to die. We got out of the car and were immediately in the thick of a terrible commotion. Pee Wees were flying every where it seemed, crying out stridently. Something was very amiss alright. Looking up the nearby tree we could see a young one on its own while higher up in the adjoining gum was the rest of the family: two chicks and the parents circling them. We stood back and watched.
Suddenly I noticed a dead Pee Wee lying in the bushes at the foot of the tree. It's wings and right leg were outstretched and its head was twisted. We were looking at the familiar sign's of hepatic coccidiosis. The youngster above us was obviously weak though still attempting to join the others. Each time it flew upwards it was summarily chased back down. We could see that the siblings were being fed but ours was not. There was no doubt in our minds what was going on. He was being quarantined.
The woman who had called was sensitive to the birds stress and really felt unable to cope. We would take the fledgling home as it was obvious what the out come would be if we left the bird there. Rod was successful at capturing the bundle of feathers after some time as it had little strength and was unable to fly high into the trees. So we brought young Poppy home.
Once safely in the aviary it was apparent her refusal to fly high was not a lack of capacity. She flew well enough in safe territory. It was obvious though that her legs were wobbly and she was exhausted. I stayed and watched her from a distance for some time. I do this with all the birds. There are many things easily missed if close attention is not paid.
Over the next couple of days it became clear that she was going down hill. She was sleeping too much and was using the little nest I had set up for her in a cocky cage hanging in a sheltered corner of the aviary. This cage was drapped in green cloth and woven with leafy branches so this shy creature would feel as safe as she could in such strange circumstances.
I checked her repeatedly through out the day and through the early evening. Things were looking bad. I was constantly rearranging her in the nest when I would find her huddled in a corner. My own needs were involved in this maternal action. She had been rejected by her family and I needed her to be aware that she was cared for and there was still love in the world.
Late on the second evening before bed I padded out with the torch to check her for the last time. She was lying beside the nest on her side breathing irregularly. It was obvious she was near death. I picked her up and took her in her nest inside. I was not going to have her die alone so for myself as much as her I bent the `no bird inside' rule.
Imagine you are sick, confused, separated from all your family for the first time. Imagine what it would feel like to be abducted by aliens and to find yourself in a spaceship cut off from all the familiar sounds and smells that have made up your world. That is what it feels like for wild things when they are taken into peoples houses
But Poppy was dying and it was night time. Moving quietly and with only candle light I placed her safely in the cat carrying cage on my bedside table. I propped her up as best I could between two socks and we said our goodbyes. We had done all we could, the only thing left was to let her go.In bed I tried vainly to get some sleep. All through that long night tiny little peeps emanated from the nest. I would peep back, she would answer then there would be silence for a while. Every so often when she called I would get up and touch her gently and make sure she was upright and comfortable.
The day eventually dawned and she was still with us. This seemed nothing short of a minor miracle to us. A bird unable to stay upright is a dead bird.It was straight outside again hanging from the apricot tree so we could keep an eagle eye on her. Poppy sat there swaying slightly in the warm breeze and slept. She accepted tiny mouthfuls of crushed up insects and insectivore mix dipped in water. And soon she was perched tentatively on top of one of the socks.
Two weeks later she was swooping around in the aviary showing off her ariel skills. It was time for her to be released on the planes.
We knew we would miss her. Though the time spent with her was short we had been through a real crisis together and she was special. Poppy had survived the scourge that had killed every other Peewee chick in care that season.
We handed her over to Sue who had support fed Badger earlier that year. She put Poppy in an aviary that held two Tawny Frogmouths and a young magpie. This young bird was very pleased to have a play mate and snuggled up closely to the Peewee half its size. Sue anticipated trouble there so removed the magpie to an adjoining cage leaving Poppy with the Tawnys who just moved their heads slowly but showed no more interest.
I stayed in there with Poppy a while so she would feel safe as she explored her new surroundings. I had told her it would only be for a day so she would get to know the new carer who would be support feeding her. Poppy flew around and settled easily. She would not let Sue near her but she was relaxed and self assured. Time to go home.
