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nice argument, buddy. unfortunately, I've already portrayed you as the invasive and pestilent starling and me as the beneficial and beloved purple martin.

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Her eyes ❤️

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The silly

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🫵 BROOD PATCH

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Zig is still healing very slowly unfortunately, but he has gotten used to the smaller cage at least. He got one of his perches back for good behavior (not fucking up his leg) and I added a bird warmer on the side of the cage that he spends most of his time loafing next to.

Also sometimes he accepts scritches now!

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how has ziggy been feeling? is yuki still doing well? thinking of you all, I know how hard it is when they're not well.

He has terminal stupid disease so I had to remove his perches for a bit until he stopped injuring himself. He's doing pretty well though, getting stronger every day!

Yuki is doing great, I'm calling it a successful recovery!

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bird question: do you know any fun facts about Starlings?

Starlings are rather interesting birds, though they have a bad rep in America because when most people think of them, they think of European Starlings. It's actually said we have Shakespeare to thank for that. In 1890, a man named Eugene Schieffelin released 100 European starlings (sturnus vulgaris) into central park, supposedly claiming he had planned to bring every bird species mentioned in Shakespeare's works to North America. In reality, historians suspect he was just trying to control the local insect population. Regardless of the reason the starlings spread out fast, they're avid scavengers, highly social, and competitive to the point they've even been known to push other birds' eggs out of nest boxes. Their large migratory flocks (reaching upwards of 100,000 individuals), aggressive nesting behaviors, and crop stealing/scavenging behaviors are perfect for the english plains where they naturally reside, but damaging in rural America. Additionally, while European starlings are the most common and well-known species, there are actually an estimated 128-131 different species of starling, belonging to the family Sturnidae, starlings are highly intelligent, excellent at mimicry, striking to look at, and recognized as one of the most social types of birds. I can't talk about them all here, the post would be too long, but there are a few notable ones I'd like to include pictures of.

^this is an Emerald Starling (Lamprotornis iris) a non migratory species native to West Africa. They're great bird parents, with both male and female birds tending to chicks.

^next is the Greater Blue-eared Starling, they're seasonal migrants with a native range spanning over most of Africa. I think this bird is probably the closest I'll get to seeing the color olo.

^Probably the most popular starling is the Violet-backed Starling (Cinnyricinclus leucogaster) native to Sub-Saharan Africa. There are very few birds that are truly purple, and these guys are one of the most purple. Truly beautiful birds.

^and last, but certainly not least, my personal favorite, the Metalic Starling (Aplonis metallica), the only species of starling native to New Guinea and the nearby islands. They're crucial to local ecosystems due to their role in seed dispersion, they spread the seeds of the fruits and plants they eat through their excrement.

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Happy hatchday to my sweet baby boy Ziggy! You turn 8 years old today. Sorry you have to spend it in the infirmary. :(

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how are the babies? and how are you? ❤️

Yuki is doing much better! Ziggy, not so much. After the better part of a week I let him out for a few minutes to assess how well he was healing and in his excitement to be free he managed to injure his one good leg. 🤦‍♀️ He no longer needs the shoe, but he's on strict cage rest for at least the next week now. God damn it Ziggy. Bowie is totally fine meanwhile, and the tiels back home are just chilling lol.

As for how I'm doing... I've been running myself ragged with my summer job as usual, trying to make enough to survive off of throughout the rest of the year when I'm a full time student (I usually end up with $0 in savings by the beginning of the next summer rip). I work 50 hour weeks and frequently my days are around 10 hours long and very physically demanding, leaving me with little time or energy to do much by the time I get home, which means I haven't been cooking, which means I haven't really been eating well... But anyway, at least I have a long weekend this week. I spend most of my weekend resting and trying to recharge for the next week lol.

But overall, I'm just really tired of my pets injuring themselves, and very worried about Ziggy.

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Mr. grumpus here got a nice warm bath between bandage changes and another fancy new shoe.

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The bandaging just the toe strategy wasn't working as Ziggy kept picking the bandage off, and I was concerned since he couldn't bear any weight on his foot. The solution? Give him a shoe.

(Figures from Splinting Avian Fractures by Rebecca Duerr.)

This method should hold the toe flat and keep it from moving until it heals.

So far it's looking promising. He is able to bear some weight on it and hobble around, seemingly without being in extreme pain.

It looks pretty inelegant, but it's working and that's what matters.

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Since someone mentioned how me documenting Ziggy's injury and care process could help people know emergency procedures for bird injuries, I thought I would take a moment to direct you all to @flock-talk's wonderful Parrot First Aid Pamphlet, which includes easy steps and illustrations for stabilizing an injured bird. You can print it out and make it into a booklet that you can keep on hand in case of emergency!

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Drinking his medicine!!

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Just as I got off the phone with my vet telling him how good Yuki was doing, I noticed Ziggy was favoring one leg badly. I managed to get him back in his cage to grab him for examination, and found that his third digit of his right foot appeared to be unable to move, and when I touched it he screamed in pain...

I immediately called the vet back and told him about it, and he walked me through bandaging it at home. He told me he sees this type of injury frequently, and that Ziggy likely tore a tendon in his toe responsible for gripping things.

I got it bandaged as well as I could given I only had one hand free while I was holding him, and so far it seems to be holding. The vet said this type of injury can't really be fixed at the vet, similar to human toe fractures it has to essentially just be stabilized and allowed to heal.

I could tell from his body language Ziggy was clearly in a lot of pain, and my vet advised using low dose aspirin dissolved in water to help with pain management.

He's now in the hospital cage for the time being, with wrapped perches that shouldn't be too hard on his feet. Hopefully the aspirin will help him, because he has mostly just been sitting in the corner clearly in agony for most of the day. :(

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how is yuki?

She's doing a lot better! Her stitches actually started coming out before they were even due to be removed because she's already healed. The implant seems to be helping a lot with her hormone levels too.

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Hobby: uploading pics of bugs Bowie catches to iNaturalist.

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Got home on Friday, Yuki is doing great! She finishes her last dose of antibiotics today. Another week or so and she will be able to get her stitches out.