About that Goldfinch

On February 27, a sick goldfinch I'd been watching for a week or more finally became blind enough to catch. Her eyes had sealed all but shut. I walked up on her blind side, and caught her in my hand as she sat on the platform feeder.  Here's how she looked from above, her eyes so swollen by Mycoplasma  infection that her entire head looked weird and big. This is called house finch disease, because house finches are the primary vector. They first caught it in the early 1990's from our domestic chickens, and have little resistance to it. And now house finches have spread it to more than 35 species of wild birds. I like house finches. Nice little birds. I hate house finch disease. 

It's a painful thing, as you can see from her swollen red eyelids. 

She sat, quiet and still and mute. The first thing to do was mix up some tylosin tartrate (Tylan), an antibiotic effective against Mycoplasma spp. , which I get from my veterinarian. I held her in my hand as I administered that solution, drop by drop. Birds with house finch disease are very thirsty, and spend lots of time sitting on bird baths, which of course allows them to infect lots of other birds. I wanted to get this bird out of the mix at my feeder, so I caught her and put her in a small plastic Critter Keeper with a couple of small crocks of hulled sunflower seed and medicated water. By that evening, her eyes had opened enough so she could see me! It always feels like a miracle that Tylan works that fast. But she had a long way to go. To clear her system of the germ, I'd have to medicate her for three weeks. 

But here's the good part. Once she could see, I could move her into a large cage. Then, all I had to do was keep her in fresh Tylan-medicated water and food, and leave her the heck alone. The healing was up to her. 

Here she was only a week later. Understand: she wasn't always this agitated. This behavior is elicited by my entering the room and making a video. She was perfectly calm until she saw me! I was the monster who caught her and made her drink medicine.

By March 12, she was looking and acting ever so much better.

She'd had two weeks of treatment when I had to leave to speak at the Michigan Bluebird Festival. I left her in the loving care of my neighbor, Martha J., who is a bird whisperer. When I saw her last, canary babies had just hatched in two nests in her bird room! Martha kept my goldfinch isolated in a back room for almost a week, until I got back with Phoebe in tow. I felt confident leaving the wild bird with Martha, because she'd been medicated for two weeks and was asymptomatic, and Martha was careful about containment. I'm very grateful she could step in. Thank you SO much, Martha!!  It's really hard to do wildlife rehab when you travel for work.

Only one day to go until release time! I put her in the basement because Liam came home for a few days to see us, and I couldn't use his bedroom as a finch sanctuary any more. She's sharing space with an enormous geranium called Frank Headley, one of three huge mother plants I have kept over the winter. Ain't it gorgeous? A semi-dwarf zonal geranium developed in the U.K. in 1957. I adore it and plan to propagate it very soon. 

Finally, March 20 came. I love this little release video Phoebe made. Goldfinches don't stop to say thanks and goodbye. They just GO. 

May this bird be the only sick one I treat this spring. There's an element of luck to it, but more to the point, I'm not using tube feeders--only port-free mesh cylinders and small platform feeders. Everything is covered by hanging acrylic domes that keep droppings from falling into the food. 

I'm feeding sunflower hearts, safflower, and peanuts both in and out of shell in a small gray hanging platform feeder (behind the cylindrical peanut feeder), and suet and black oil sunflower hang from the other two hooks.

I just ran outside to shoot these photos. Brrr!! It's 56 and incredibly blustery. Gusts up to 39 mph make it feel like about 40 degrees out there! This is a somewhat better look at the small platform feeder in the foreground. I love this one because the birds tend to perch on the rim to feed, butts over the ground, and don't crap into their food. Good feeder hygiene is all about controlling poop.  And I don't use tube feeders because goopy sick bird eyes rub against the ports. So think about that. If you've got disease at your feeders, your first best step is to discontinue using tube feeders. Next, stop feeding when the weather is reliably warm. If you feed all summer long, you'll probably wind up feeding familes of house finches, who will happily breed nearby, producing multiple broods. Yay! you'll have even more disease vectors for your feeding program. See the connection?

My hanging system is the Denali Squirrel Stopper with four hooks, made by JCS Wildlife.

I save SO much money on seed now that the squirrels can't make it up the pole! The sliding baffle is very effective, as long as they can't leap from a nearby tree--which they sometimes manage to do.

Thought you'd appreciate some birdfeeding tips from someone who's been at it since she was about 10. Hard-won experience has led me to the conclusions I state here. Farewell, little goldfinch, and try to stay out of trouble now.

Oscar’s Top Three Olive Oils

Olive oil is a Very Big Deal for Oscar Bello Goya.  He cooks with it, pours it over his food, and spends a good amount of time thinking about it, selecting it, and enjoying it every single day. 

When we ask him what he wants for his birthday or Christmas, it's always olive oil. Imagine. (Says the woman with the Filippo Berlio cooking oil in the clear plastic bottle, and a small bottle of Trader Joe's Extra Virgin for salads.) I mean, I know enough to know you cook with cooking grade oil and make salad dressing with EVOO. I know when I'm dredging my crusty bread in something bright grass green and incredibly nice at a good restaurant. I swoon. But I don't generally treat myself to that kind of thing. I just didn't grow up appreciating olive oil. I probably never even tasted it until I was in my mid-twenties!

You all were so generous when I asked for some contributions toward olive oil for Oscar's 30th birthday. We were humbled. I put his birthday post up in the evening and when I got up the next morning I gasped and immediately removed the donation solicitation from the post. I mean, enough! So generous. So enthusiastic. And we are so grateful! Oscar gets his olive oil at oliveoillovers, the best source he's found for exquisite oils from around the world. 

I made a couple of videos when I was last in Indiana, of Oscar cooking his amazing Spanish tortilla (a big wheel of eggy deliciousness with fried potatoes in the center and a dash of curry and a ton of olive oil poured over top). It's soooo good. Oscar got a certification in kitchen operations at IES San Sebastian de La Gomera, on his home island in the Canary chain.

 I have had the great pleasure of Oscar and Phoebe's company over their spring break. Last night I made a little video of Oscar administering a very fine olive oil which was a gift from Liam. It's a varietal called Hojiblanca (white leaf) and it's from a company named A Twist on Olives in Westerville, Ohio. This stuff is as smooth as it gets, without the throat-burning bitterness of some great olive oils that sort of baffles me. The thing is, olive oil is meant to be drizzled over foods that will cut that burn and turn it into a peppery asset. You aren't really supposed to guzzle it straight.

Hojiblanca EVOO gets Oscar's vote, and mine, too. This was our Thanksgiving in March meal. I roasted a turkey breast and did my best to make good gravy from it; Oscar made mashed potatoes, and I made some pretty fab lima bean and carrot succotash. YUM. It was a proper feast, but every night they've been home has seen a feast. Gravy is an unknown thing in the Canary Islands, but Oscar has taken to it like a duck to water. Every meal I make with gravy he tells me is his favorite American food. :) I have to look aside when he pours olive oil on top of my American gravy. 

 

My kids seem never to be happier than when they're tucking into a feast here at home. When I was a teen and college student, highly peripatetic and apt to be out biking and birding when 6 pm rolled around, I couldn't understand why everything in my parents' house had to revolve around meals. Now, as the meal provider, I get it, totally and completely. Meals were when we got together. That was when we talked and caught up together. Nobody but my busy mom stood and ate over the sink in my house, growing up, the way I often do now. And when my kids are here, we plan around meals. 

Look at that smile. He can't wait to tuck in!

Now for a few tips on selecting olive oil. Oscar doesn't just taste it, but he looks carefully at it, as well. He likes a strong, clear color, which can vary from pale straw yellow to emerald green. He checka to see that it's fresh and recently pressed (you can't age olive oil the way you can let wine age; fresher is better). Olives are harvested in October, November and December.

You should be able to see on the label where the oil is from. Oscar prefers Spanish oils. 

Oscar likes to see cloudy stuff in the bottom of the bottle; he says that's the sign of a good olive oil. 

Olive oil is usually sold in opaque, dark green bottles, and that's because light destroys its unique properties. Oscar keeps his oil in a closed cabinet. For that reason, olive oil sold in clear plastic or glass bottles is likely to be less than top grade. 

There are cooking oils, and oils that are not meant to be subjected to heat. I do buy Bertolli and Filippo Berlio oil for cooking, and that often comes in a clear bottle. Extra virgin (EVOO), sold in opaque bottles, is not used for cooking but for dipping and garnishing, and for salad dressing. 

In this video, Oscar introduces his top three oils, and talks a bit about why he likes them. I thought you would enjoy hearing from him in his own kitchen. Please accept our sincere thanks for making his 30th birthday so very special. I trust you can tell how happy a good olive oil can make him. With your generosity, he'll be sitting pretty for quite awhile! 

               

About That Kestrel

 

Around January 22, 2025, a beautiful little falcon appeared, hanging around Jess' garage in Devola, Ohio. The bird couldn't fly much at all, but it managed to get atop a lawnchair, where it would perch, looking out at the wide fields stretching to the Muskingum River. At one point, Jess found it hiding in her garage. This went on for a few days. Jess knew something was wrong, so she asked her bird-loving friend Shelley what to do, and Shelley led her to me.

I went over, armed with leather gloves, a butterfly net, and a cat carrier, and swiftly had the female American kestrel in hand.  A quick check revealed no broken bones, but she was flightless, so I looked closer and found some matted feathers and abrasions on the underside of her right wing. It turned out they were rakes in the flesh of the biceps and triceps, which would certainly impede flight. I put a snap-trapped mouse in the carrier with her and headed northwest, for Coshocton, where Airmid Place, a new home rehab center, is located. It was almost a two-hour drive. She was well worth it. A quick dropoff and turnaround and I was headed home again, a day spent for a good bird.  She had eaten half the mouse by the time we got to Coshocton. That was a great sign! I could only imagine how hungry she was, after several days of immobility in the intense cold.

I was delighted to learn from Shane Pyle, proprietor, that her prognosis was excellent. He put her on antibiotics and pain medications and wrapped the injured wing. 

The weeks ticked by and the kestrel's wing healed, was unwrapped, and she was transferred to a flight aviary to build her strength back. Finally I got a text from Shane that she'd be ready to go on Saturday, March 8. This time he met me halfway, for which I was grateful. 

This little lady came in at 97 gm, and was going home at 118 gm. Shane said that he has to keep kestrels under about 130 gm or they'll be too fat to fly. I thought about my bats, Stella and Mirabel, who got too fat to fly, and what it took to get the weight off them and get them flying right. I never got a bat too fat again.

Here's Shane Pyle, owner/operator of Airmid Place.

He loves kestrels and said it was an honor to keep her while she healed. I felt the same about being her driver! Driving Miss Weezie. (I named her in honor of my friend Matt Mullenix's mother, a fiery and brilliant Louisiana lady-in-the-truest-sense who passed away in late February). Like a beautiful little bird, she is. And Matt is a world-renowned expert on falconry with the American kestrel. So.

I drove along the Muskingum, through the floodplain farm fields, past the old, old homes.

We got to Jess' home just before 11AM (not bad for leaving the house at 9!) She had assembled a nice little gaggle of excited kids who were waiting to see the release of the famous falcon.

Way back when I was a young rehabber a crowd like this crowding around a wild bird would have rattled me. Now I say, "Give the kids a look!" A small price for the kestrel to pay to get back her soundness and her life, and you never know whose life direction it might change.

Please pardon my release technique. I should have taken the carrier apart, in retrospect, and let her launch out of the top. Instead I had to clumsily dump her out. She didn't want to leave the safety of the dark carrier and kept scuttling way to the back when I tried to get her out. Who can blame her?

Real-time video by Jessica Black.

And now for the slow-motion video by Shila Wilson! 

She circled three times and fetched up in a distant treeline, the lone tree on the right. Her flight was strong and beautiful. Weezie perched up there for about 15 minutes, surveying the fields she knows so well. Then, when we weren't watching, she vanished into the clear blue.

Here are some stills from Shila's video. Oh, is she lovely!

See ya! Thanks for the mice and the rides!

Deepest gratitude to Shane for healing, feeding and exercising this little jewel since late January, that she may arrow through the Devola skies again! If you'd like to contribute, here's Airmid Place's website. Be sure to say it's for the kestrel!