In which Maggie gains the trust of DEMONS!!!

[maggies_lens]

First tho: DON'T read the 65redroses blog which is currently in Spotlight UNLESS you want to cry like your heart is shattering into a million pieces!

Now: I may have mentioned, probably with much evil giggling, the birds that have been nesting in the rock garden of the carpark next door to work. They provide me and the rest of the coms room with endless amusement because the little bastards SWOOP like the devil itself. They are Masked Lapwings, commonly called Plovers (Vanellus miles). And they are VICIOUS! Well, not vicious, just very, very good parents. Can't hold that against an animal, can you? So of course Maggie views this as a challenge. :) It's taken me weeks of extremely careful approach but I did it. I have gained the trust of the demon birds. Check it out :) And in case you are wondering, yep these were taken from about six or so steps away and in the car. That's the parent birds comfort zone and I don't intend to break it. Last thing I need is to be hand raising 3 baby birds :P


The proud parents and one of the hatchlings. He's about 2 or 3 days old. Yep, they are hatched ready to run :)




This is my utter favourite shot from the whole lot. :)


So tiiiiny!


Exploring


There really are 3, I just couldn't get them all in the same frame :P


Little cutey wooty itty bitty FUZZEH WUZZY demon bird :D


It's hard work when you're just a little tacker!


I kept SQUEEEEE'ing the whole time I was shooting these :D


Daddy bird. He will mess you right up. See that yellow bit sticking out of his wing? That's a SPIKE. I kid you not, a freaking spike. They will not hesitate to use it to protect their nest and their young. Now you tell me, am I brave or just very, very stupid? :D


And yep, mumma has the Spike of Doom too. Another thing they do is pretend they have a broken wing to try and lead you away from their nest.


It's a big wide world out there, and he's gonna conquer it all!!!


But right now he just want's his mumma :)


The fact that mumma was comfortable enough to lay down and stretch her wings out in the sun should let you know how careful I was with the 'lets-be-friends' conditioning ;) I REALLY didn't want 3 baby birds to hand raise :D


I love the black tips on their heads :D


checking in with mum


Off to hunt down ants and other wee bugs to eat.

Comments? You guys wanna see more of these little dudes as they grow up if they stick around?



I kinda proud of those shots. Birds are notoriously difficult to photograph, esp the active baby variety!

Comments

[evergrey.livejournal.com]

These are AWESOME shots! :D

[maggies-lens.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much :D I put HELLA effort into these :D

[madeyemads.livejournal.com]

Just gorgeous!!!
Wonderful pics and they are soooooo sweet.

[maggies-lens.livejournal.com]

They are beautiful birds. Most people can't see past what they view as violent and nasty behaviour to see their awesomeness. That's where crazy nature lady Maggie steps in. Has camera, will deal with being swooped and/or sharing her lunch for two or so weeks if it means I get shots like these :D

[dawning-horizon.livejournal.com]

OMG! Love the pics! Yes, if you don't loose an eye keep updating as they grow up! :)

[maggies-lens.livejournal.com]

hehehehehee, I'm heading in to work tonight. May head in a little early if time allows and see if I can snap off a couple more. I hope the little babies will be ok - we have a lot of stray cats in that area. But I think with agro parents like these they should be ok.

[sprinklerized.livejournal.com]

Sooo fluffy! Adorable shots! :D

[maggies-lens.livejournal.com]

They are soooooo sweet! So weird to see baby birds up an fluffy like this when normally I find nests with pinky ugly things in them for the first couple weeks :D

[snippetchick.livejournal.com]

Aww, so adorable! Lovely photos :)

I won't read that blog you mentioned, but I'm assuming the 65redroses is referring to CF. I unfortunately don't need a blog to know quite a bit about it. My cousin has it and it's terrible. My mother has the gene, my father doesn't, so there's a 1 in 4 chance that I have the gene lurking. It's a horrible, horrible disease.

[maggies-lens.livejournal.com]

I think just about anything baby is adorable :D
Oh? How did you know it was about CF? I know they made a doco about the girl who wrote the blog and titled it that, but I don't think they ever explain why exactly it's called 65 Red Roses.I don't know very much about the disease other than I THINK it mainly effects people's lungs, eventually badly enough that a transplant is required. But apart from that, not much. Never known anyone who has it etc. NO matter what, it looks shocking :(
You, art posts, where are they? ;)

[snippetchick.livejournal.com]

Well, it came about going on memory because a little kid couldn't pronounce cystic fibrosis and instead thought it was 65 roses. There's a sad yet catchy song about it, too.
The red bit is something else they added though.
The disease is horrible, it does all sorts of things, more than just lungs. People with CF produce waaaaaaay too much mucus, which is where the lung problems start. But they also lack an enzyme essential to digestion of fats and have to take multiple tablets with every meal they eat and have a very careful diet. They tend to get very sick whenever they catch a cold because it causes an increase in their already huge mucus levels. Their bodies secrete way more salt in their sweat than usual. So a proper diet for someone with CF tends to need to be high in fat and salt - they have huge problems keeping weight on. Unless it's diagnosed pre-birth with a genetic test, it's usually diagnosed when young babies just get sick and lose weight and have very foul-smelling black poo.

Old life expectancy before modern medicine was months. Then it became years. I think now it's around 40 or so but young people still die of it, even in Australia. My cousin lost a good friend of his who was 18 with it, it really hit him hard :(
They grow up spending half their childhood in hospital wards. I'll be making sure I get tested for it before having kids, and so will James - it's very simple inheritance luckily, the one positive thing about it.


Ahaha. I'm not feelin the art posts right now, but they'll come! I go through phases with art and posting. I'm in an off phase right now, slacker that I am! I've been roped into doing some painting for my little sis, she's got her first solo exhibition next Saturday. By solo, I mean almost solo. i might do one or two to pad things out and provide alternatives :) So when I produce art or if I do, I'll scan and post it :D

[nattie-dino.livejournal.com]

masked lapwings are gorgeous :)

[maggies-lens.livejournal.com]

When they are not swooping me, they are indeed :D