Ardath Rekha

-- Mitchell turned out not to be a baby robin. LOL! Now that "he" has "his" feathers and has begun actually chirping coherently, it's very clear that Mitchell is a baby female cardinal. Oh well for the experts, eh? XD She's a hilarious little cutie. Very cuddly. I sat for her again today and will be sitting for her again tomorrow.

-- Star is not thrilled about Mitchell, and has shown distinct signs of jealousy over her presence. Which is adorable in its own way. She (or he, we're not sure yet) doesn't have to worry, though, because s/he is still #1 with me.

-- Star is such a verbal little thing that I'm leaning towards "her" being male. Among starlings, the males are the songcrafters and the females rarely speak much. If Star is male, we're going to be in for a treat before it's release-time, because baby/juvenile starlings have a tendency to compose little concertos with their free time. We have a bunch of old recordings of Charlie, the starling we raised more than twenty years ago, that I need to digitize sometime; they're quite incredible. If I'm very lucky, I'll be able to post recordings of Star's songs online later this summer.

-- We've totally bonded. As far as Star is concerned, I'm MOM. The second s/he sees me, the shouting starts, and then s/he flies straight over to me. Yes, for food, but also for cuddles. Once s/he's full, it's time to snuggle. This involves finding a spot on me where s/he can nestle down and start making funny little chirps, and experimentally pecking around on my skin and clothing. It also involves being stroked. Birds in the nest are a lot more tactile than people realize; cuddling is what they do in the nest, and Star fully expects lots of physical affection from me. Which s/he gets. Evenings involve Star nestled into the palm of my hand, watching and listening to the things going on outside of the window, until it's too dark to see and s/he falls asleep. It's magical.

-- Don't think this is going to cause any kind of identity crisis for Star. Whenever the real starlings are around, s/he is instantly shouting at them through the window-screen. It'll be several more weeks, though, before the juveniles start banding together into social groupings of their own. By then I'll have hopefully taught Star how to catch his/her own insects, worms, grubs, etc., and s/he'll have had enough exposure to the local starling clans that s/he'll be familiar with their rules and able to assimilate. Starlings are very gregarious and, in the fall, will form flocks numbering in the hundreds, so it's really a pretty safe bet that they'll accept Star into their numbers.

-- Star would like the whole world to know that s/he is a BIG KID now and can actually swallow a large cricket without any assistance. You are hereby notified that you must now be deeply impressed with his/her awesomeness. Bow down before his/her feathery magnificence, mere humans! S/he bets you couldn't keep one down! ;)

-- Yes, we really do need a gender-neutral pronoun with no pejorative connotations to it. Now.

-- My back is still a little sore but it's finally starting to normalize again and feel okay. And my little finger is remarkably unswollen and normal-colored given the mashing it took. There's barely any pain, although I'm being careful with it. Karma? :D