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bird
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2020-06-01
Beautiful Silence in Paradise
Hawaii is a very unique place in terms of its beauty and overall welcoming atmosphere. I grew up knowing how popular of a destination spot my state is and how in many ways we are extremely dependent on outside sources to fuel our small island economies and businesses. I had thought that aspects I had become used to seeing, such as the extremely busy downtown shopping and tourism part of Hilo, would never change. The many common things you'd have smelled seen and heard were the many cars out on the road, the overfilled wastebaskets by every park and beach, the tents of entire families at many of the beaches, and the constant rush of modern living in Hawaii. Then in March through April of 2020, the university in which I was attending at the time made the big decision to cancel in person meetings for the foreseeable future. The days of constant business and crowded areas in a matter of weeks ceased to be. In late April continuing until recently, the most common things you would see empty streets, closed signs, empty parking lots, and most importantly of all, you would actually get to smell the salt of the water from the ocean, the chirping of birds by the dozens in commercial areas, and even the return of sea turtles to what were known to be crowded beaches. It’s as if the lack of tourism and industry during Covid-19 gave us local residents a new perspective of our home. One where it felt like we could finally breathe and stretch out our legs for a bit while we dealt with the pandemic effects. -
2020-07
Diminished Quality of Veterinary Care During the Pandemic
Our pets are a part of our family. So when their health is in jeopardy, it affects us all greatly. Early on in the pandemic, we had an emergency with our lovebird, Kermit. Our larger bird, an African Grey named Greycee, landed on top of Kermit's cage. Kermie proceeded to bite her toe through the cage bars, and Greycee bit back. Luckily we heard the scuffle and intervened immediately, but Greycee had created quite the puncture wound on Kermit's upper beak/nares. Normally these two are best buddies, so this was a suprising freak incident. I cleaned off Kermit's beak, but it looked bad and her breathing was shallow and rapid. Birds in respiratory distress can die rapidly. I rushed her to the emergency vet who told me that there was a 4 hour wait to be seen. I told them that Kermit wouldn't last 4 hours, so they agreed to see her immediately (for an additional fee of course) but I had to wait in the car. My already stressed and injured baby had to go into a strange place with strange people without her mom because of Covid. They stabalized her and sent her home for the night. I feared she wouldn't make it until the morning. Luckily, she pulled through the night. I called our vet immediately the next morning. It took several tries. Since you also had to wait in the car while there, and all conversations with the vet were over the phone, their phone lines were constantly busy. I finally got through, but they told me that despite the gravity of her condition there was no way they could get her in that day. Under normal circumstances they could, but with the new covid protocols every minute of every day was totally overbooked. I tried the emergency vet again and they had a 6 hour wait. You had to wait on site in your car too, which I couldn't do with my 4 year old daughter. Since Kermit is a bird, she cannot just go to any vet. There are only 2 avian vets in my area. I took a chance and called the other one and explained the situation. They were able to squeeze us in. Again I had to wait in the car and hand my baby off. She ended up staying the night. The blood from her wound had entered her lungs causing her breathing issues. She had recovered quite a bit by the next day, and the vet even allowed me in with social distancing and masks in order to show me how I needed to hand feed her for the next two weeks until her beak healed. At least because of the pandemic I was working from home at the time, so I could care for and monitor Kermit all day. Within a week she was back to her normal self. In the fall, our Dog Evie went to the vet because a suspicious lump had grown on her toe. Evie is absolutely terrified of the vet. She is also deaf and has limited vision, so it is harder to comfort her. She needs our touch and our smell for reassurance. Of course, jsut as with Kermit, we could not go in with her. The vet techs had to carry her in because she was shaking so badly in fear. She needed to be sedated to do the biopsy of the lump. The report came back positive for cancer. She had to go back in again to have the whole toe removed as the biopsy had not gotten it all. This time she had to stay nearly all day and be pumped with anxiety meds to keep her asleep until the procedure. It was thankfully successful, but she also needed a follow up visit, so more meds. The whole experience was traumatizing for both our animals and us. What's even worse is people were treated the same way. -
2020-06-26
From Noise to Silence
The Pandemic impacted everyone in different ways. Everyone's life changed in one way or another. For me, my life went from hustling and bustling to peace, silence, and alone time. Before the Pandemic, my daily routine was driving 45 minutes to work daily, frequent trips to Mexico, and I was constantly on the move. A full-time student, and part-time tutor, I was continually helping students and finding study time at my local Community College. Also, I would frequent local Starbucks often to work on my reading and writing assignments. However, when the Pandemic hit, everything changed for me. Now, instead of driving to work daily and visiting Mexico, I found myself working online, studying in my room, and not seeing anyone face to face except for immediate relatives. For the majority of the Pandemic, I did not go anywhere as I previously did. In other words, the hustling and bustling of the highway now turned into silence, the continued camaraderie between students and cow-workers now turned into silence, and just like that, my life altered to a new dimension of silence like have never experienced. -
2020-03-15
COVID-19 And Pet Birds
As a parrot owner, I was initially concerned at the start of the pandemic that the virus could be transferred to my avian companions. While I know that viruses are often species-specific, mutations can allow them to jump species. Birds have incredibly delicate respiratory systems, so a respiratory illness in a bird is often deadly. This article from bird food producer Lafaeber explains why caution is warranted by not panic. It is now more than a year since this article has been written, and I am no longer concerned about my parrots catching COVID-19. I belong to many bird groups on social media and have yet to hear of a pet bird who caught the disease. -
2021-02-04
Exotic Birds Rescued During the Pandemic
As a parrot owner myself, this story is near and dear to my heart. Amid the national news headlines of dog and cat adoptions sweeping the nation during the pandemic, the opposite is true for our feathered friends. Parrots require a great deal of time, care, money, and space. Most birds easily outlive dogs and cats, and the larger ones often outlive their owners. Parrots can be loud, demanding and messy. They don't respect that you are in a zoom meeting with the CEO or that your neighbor's baby is asleep in the apartment on the other side of the wall. With people working from home, losing income, and/or being hospitalized or passing away from COVID-19, many parrots have been surrendered to rescues. -
2021-03-09
Birds during the pandemic
This article tells us about wildlife, specifically birds, during the pandemic. As many other animals were, birds were a lot more active when the lockdown began. Some many see this as a good thing but this article goes into detail about the good and bad things that happened to birds during the pandemic. This article is important because it addresses a topic not many people think is important and gives more in depth into this side of nature. -
2021-03-26
Hope
Hope. Hope is a fragile thing, A delicate flower, Afraid of being crushed, But it keeps on growing anyway. Hope. Hope is a flame, Burning night and day, The fear of burning out, But it keeps on blazing anyway. Hope. Hope is a bird, Flying forever further, higher, than ever before, Crossing boundaries never spoken of, Never crossed before, Fearful of crashing down, down, down, never to be seen again. But it keeps on soaring anyway, never tiring it’s wings. It’s delicate, flowering wings. It’s bright, flaming wings. It’s hopeful wings. -
2021-01-12
Sounds of nature over while civilization takes a break
In Hawaii, especially on the island of Kauai there were so many tourist that near the roads and tourist shops and restaurants you most heard traffic or people, and in the evenings live entertainment for tourists. Now, in the mornings you can hear birds and at night the crickets. -
2021-01-11
The Beginning
I think the most believable way is The outbreak began in Wuhan, China a city with a population of over 11 million. The virus is believed to have originated from a market where animals such as bats, snakes, rabbit and birds are illegally sold. Humans as well as animals both living and dead are put together in close contact in markets in often unhygienic conditions. As the coronavirus is known to be transferred from animals to humans, it is believed market stallholders, who came into contact with animals were the first people infected with the strain. A 61 year-old frequent shopper at the wet market was the first person to die from the virus. -
2020-09-29
New life in the wetlands
One of the good things that has occurred with the second stay-at-home lockdown in Melbourne, Victoria is that we are all out walking more regularly. This enforced 5km limit from home has meant that we are looking more closely at our environment. These Australasian Swamp Hen chicks were recently hatched and stumbling with their big feet through their reed nest. A couple of days later a big rainfall event swamped the nest but the chicks have survived as I have seen them on the ponds in the wetlands. A beautiful and hopeful reminder that the natural world cycle of birth is going on around us inspite of the Pandemic. -
2020-03-20
"Government bird battery meme"
This image is a meme about a popular joke made at the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic that there was not really a virus and it was just a government ploy to get everyone to stay inside in order to change the batteries in the electronic birds. -
2020-03-20
By the time you read this, it will already be obsolete
They say in Vermont, if you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes for it to change. I haven’t found it true of clouds or rain, but the news is on an hourly refresh: constantly changing, though never for the better. The world’s gone to dog time. Days have telescoped to weeks. Last week feels like a different era entirely, when kids went to school, businesses stayed open, you could grab lunch in town or take the cat to the vet. After days of pouring over graphs, I could redraw contagion curves from memory, but it all seems strangely theoretical. The number of reported cases in Vermont is still less than a block in Wuhan or Milan. And it’s never that busy here, so the towns look pretty much normal. Nationally and worldwide, the deaths are still lower than the flu, lower than heart disease, lower than car accidents, and yet the trajectories explode like a flushed grouse. While these fears, statistics, and calculations swoop through my brain, the real birds have returned: lines of geese, honking encouragement as they struggle against the wind; gangs of grackles, blackbirds and starlings descending on our feeders and glistening in the cloudy half-light. We should really bring our feeders in, as the warmth has awakened the bears. Last year the ground was frozen nearly until May. This year the snow vanished a few days before the pandemic arrived, winter evaporating as quickly as our former lives. My husband and kids, home all the time now, help me rake away last year’s leaves, uncovering bright shoots of daffodils, and yellow and purple crocuses already blooming. Soon the frogs will shout their odes to fertility from every pond, sending out an aural map of still water. Each time I go outside, my spirits lift, just a little, as non-human life goes on the way it always has, and the world tilts slowly toward warmth. -
2020-05-18
Purpose of COVID-19 by Jennifer Shanteau
This virus is an awakening. We saw how much better our planet is for just this short time without our usual insults. I swear the birds sing louder. We are discovering that some of us are very strong- heroes. We started to think, and create, and find ways to change, and move forward positively. We shared food, and masks, and hope. There were sadly also those who haven’t grown, and didn’t want to see the virus, so they looked away, unable to handle it, causing many deaths. These same people want everything to go back to the way it was. The way, if you are paying attention, it can never be again. They are like toddlers without their binky, having tantrums, frightened of moving forward to our inevitable new reality. We will never have an opportunity like this again to really see ourselves. We were forced to look in the mirror. We can’t look away. We have to fix our face. -
2020-03-15
Birds keep building nests
This is a photo I took while walking in the park. It is nothing extraordinary it is just a picture of a leafless tree with several birds nests sitting in its branches. I took it because I remember feeling really off that day. I had that feeling in my stomach and arms, the feeling you get where you are anxious but you do not fully know why. Work was hectic, outside seemed to quiet to be outside and something about this tree captured a normalcy I wished I felt part of at the time. I can not say this virus is what scares me. I am not underestimating the abilities of an illness with no vaccine but I feel if anything, it is people that have scared me. The second it seems that the world is not working in our favor we have turned against one another, hoarded, fought, been unsympathetic in nature to the only other beings that can truly understand how we feel. While all the while, the birds remain unfazed, building their nests in their trees. -
2020-04-14
The Tiny Cenzontle Bird
Story -
2020-04-08
Which quarantine bird are you
If gun shops are an essential service in the US, then cartoonists should be an essential service for us.