Birdy

dream. Perta could have fertile eggs this time, fertilized by one of the young from her last year’s nest. I hope Perta’s eggs will be fertile. Some of the other fliers are beginning to build nests, too. Most of them, like pigeons, are building in the security of the flight cage. One, like Perta, is building outside. It’s the little yellow one, the one I first took out. She’s building in the tree overhanging the roof of our house. Because of cats, this worries me. I don’t know whether I should try to move the nest or not. I decide to leave it alone and hope for the best.
    – I’ve got to learn to live with myself the way I am. The trouble is there are whole parts of me I don’t know. All my life, I’ve been building a personal picture of myself like body building in Strength and Health . Only I didn’t build from the inside, I built from the outside, to protect myself against things.
    Now, a big part of this crazy structure is torn apart. I have to start all over, looking inside to find what’s really there. I don’t know if I can do it. I’ll probably wind up putting together the old Al with some pieces missing and plaster it over somehow.
    I’ve got to learn how to live with fear. It’s built in and there’s no sense fighting it. Without fear we wouldn’t be successful animals. Fear’s nothing to be ashamed of. Just like play or pain it’s natural and necessary. I’ve got to live with this.
    In the dream, all four of Perta’s eggs hatch. There are three darks and one yellow. Perta says the yellow one is female and thedarks male. I still can’t tell; I’ll probably never make it as a bird. In the daytime, up in the tree, Perta’s eggs hatch; so she wasn’t sterile after all. It makes me feel better about my Perta.
    The birds in the breeding cages are going at it like mad. There are eight nests of five. As they’re ready to leave the breeding cages, I’ll put them all in the female cage so the male flight cage can be kept for the fliers. The fliers have begun to fill their cage with young ones too. The nests are built with materials they’ve scavenged from outside. They’re in and out of the aviary all day like pigeons. I leave the wire gate open for them. The opening’s too small and the landing platform too high and too narrow for a cat to get in.
    I’m not sure what I’ll do when their babies begin to fly around the flight cage. The problem is whether to leave the outside entrance open or not. These young birds won’t have been trained to come to me when I whistle or to come back to the aviary at all. Would the parents teach them? Would they realize that the only food for them is in the cage? I decide to take the chance and leave the cage open. As long as they’re being fed by the parents, they’ll come back to the cage. That way they’ll get the habit. When they’ve started cracking seed for themselves will be the time when I’ll know if it’s all possible. Can they be free and still be part of the aviary community?
    In my dream, life is really a dream. I fly and sing and help feed the babies. Then when they come out of the nest, I teach them to fly. Teaching them to fly in the open air is almost as much fun as flying itself. Teaching flying is always the best part of flight dreams. Perta is happy and is already sitting on a new nest of babies. They’re a week old. I fly with the first nest to all my favorite places. Some of my children from last year fly with us, especially the males who aren’t tied down to the nest. These birds are something between brothers and uncles to the new ones, and help with the teaching. Being a father and grandfather at the same time is a tremendous experience. I feel like a brother to my own children. It’s too bad people are so old when they get to be grandparents.
    The other female who built outside the cage in the daytime hatches her birds, too. I think there are three of them. I can’t see the nest where Perta has built very well because it’s so high. I wouldn’t knowher birds are hatched except I hear them peeping to be fed. In my dream, there is no other bird besides Perta and myself who builds outside the cage.
    The way my canaries have adapted to natural life is almost proof that a canary keeps many of its natural skills even after centuries of being in cages and generations of interbreeding with other types of birds. I feel that if my canaries could find proper food, they would probably survive alone, without me.
     
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