Somewhere to play.

a bird in the hand ...

A common saying to say, one has an advantage and should be happy with it - a bird in the hand.

For me it means another mouth to feed, another box (world) with something in it, another interesting visitor to my world.

Birds are one of my main hobbies. It was my aim in life to own as many birds as I could get.
I wanted a bird farm, aviaries filled with all the breeding birds which would be practical to keep.

A lot of bird specie are not practical to keep as they exceed normal aviary offers.

Somehow it never became the world I wanted it to be, as life kept demanding its pound of flesh.
Blood and all, life is not fussy that way.

Yesterday, as I was minding my own business, which includes inspecting all the weaver nests the genet has ripped from the tree, there was this baby bird.
Now it is a bird in the hand, which has to be fed, bed, and cleaned.

An unusual visitor it is, Chrysococcyx caprius - Diederik's Cuckoo.
It is a very pretty bird when mature with its green and white coat.
The Cuckoo is known as laying its egg in the nest of another bird, who will then happily raise this little intruder.

Now me and the weavers have the same problem - raising Caine.
A fitting name I would think - Caine.

After due oogling at Google, it will have to be Cain McCaine.

Working on this :

Cain's blog.

There I was, hanging around, minding my own business ... (yes, I do mind my own business - the same as everybody else around here) when in popped the genet for a gander, or whatever is on the menu for the day.

Every one around here is on the take.

That one takes worms or insects, those over there seek seeds, and some are further up the food chain - they prefer their food dressed up in the skin - fresh, kicking, and alive.

Other are scavengers, then they are mostly food themselves being lowly insects. There are of course the super class, the hyena, vulture, and many more who are not fussy about what they eat. I was told, humans were the supreme class - top of the food chain. They will eat almost anything.

The genet has this habit of trying to sniff around inside the nest by hanging upside down on the branch. Sometimes the nest will become undone from the branch, and all will fall down, genet and all onto the ground below.

One of the weavers became dinner or something happened, because on the ground in a broken nest with no one to feed me - I was left alone.

Now one would think, maybe; poor little orphan bird, then keep in mind, it started off with me being orphaned by my egg-bearer.

Cuckoos have this thing about passing on their responsibilities over to others. Where and when it started we are still trying to work out. That Darwin bloke had an idea, only it was so far-fetched nobody took it serious. Still, we keep on doing it and it suits us fine. Cuckoos lay their eggs in other bird's nests, and they (the other birds, weavers in this case) take over the parenting chores without a cheep.