New Birds

Louis and Simon Part 1

Stepping through the south door of the aviary, Louis licked his index finger and held it out to the dry dawn. He wasn't expecting a breeze, but when none crossed his finger, he cursed. Any wishful explanation to why the door of the smaller hatchling cage stood open, swinging slightly on its hinges, was preferable to the perceivable one. 

Just two days prior, he had spent a considerable amount of time applying yet another latch to that door. A rather convoluted maze of metal that should have remained latched.

The bigger cage, directly behind it, with its similar blue tin roof and double chicken-wire covered frame, sat empty these last several months. No longer required, now that his storks were taking on the task of nurturing their young. A natural trait that was all but lost, and which forced upon him endless days of dropper feeding and gentle handling, while willing this instinct back into each generation. He wanted to believe he helped them reclaim this role, but if not, at least he did his part in keeping two stork species from extinction as they figured it out for themselves.

The rising sun lent a diffused pink to the dust he kicked up as he crossed the aviary. The chatter of birds penetrated the early morning air. Not yet at the height of their daily barrage of noise but certainly on their way. The bill clattering of his courting pairs joined the chorus by the time he reached the open door of the hatchling cage, where seven marabou stork chicks, all orphaned, stood at the threshold, making a fine impression of a baby hydra; for not a sliver of space entered between their downy bodies, pressed together as they were. Seven inquisitive pebble grey faces searched his, while he quickly checked them over. All were fine.

Behind them, in the far corner of the cage, two of the three painted stork chicks huddled, looking somewhat distressed but otherwise uninjured. Not finding any trace of the third, Louis straightened and kicked the door closed, scattering the bigger chicks back into the interior.

There was simply no way he was participating again in this absurdity, but he was already wrestling his binoculars from the bib of his white overalls and crossing under the tall nesting columns, skirting their striped shadows, for a less obstructed view of his caged sky.

He passed the wading pool, where some of his flock, the quieter ones, stood idly in shafts of ghostly sunlight. Sunlight bolstered by the yellow beaks and orange faces of his painted storks, while vanishing completely into the dark feathered backs and pink-skinned necks of his more numerous and bigger marabous. It was difficult not to liken the scene to a gathering of undertakers at a Picasso exhibit, where the undertakers now outnumbered the art by seven to one.

This upward trend in procreation, if it kept up, would soon make his marabous the second largest population of a bird species, natural or otherwise, in the entire world. His painted storks might soon close in on the top ten. But if the grainy photo in a recent New West Newsletter was authentic, and not something refurbished from half a century ago, he still wasn't catching up to Sri Lanka and its thriving population of wild Great Indian Hornbills anytime soon. A photo, which so impressed him, had him rethinking, possibly even regretting, aspects of his breeding program. Perhaps, if he had spent less time constructing such a massive aviary and more time down in Calgary making noise, he would feel  more secure in releasing more into the wild. But as yet, there were very few laws in place to protect them.

Turning sixty-two and still having to maintain such a giant structure and the care and feeding of all its inhabitants contributed some to this regret.

Upon reaching the centre of the aviary, he looked upward through his binoculars. While there were many storks in various flight patterns above, Simon, by far his largest marabou, was easy to spot, lazily circling the dome's upper limits. By one tiny wing, from Simon's beak, the missing chick dangled. Louis let out his usual litany of curses. All of which went unheard in the growing chatter, as Simon folded into the shadows cast by the thicker netting, re-emerging as stretched ebony. Was it so wrong to hope Simon would simply drop the chick from that height? By slip or on purpose. To have it done with so Louis could get on with his day. It would certainly save him from much unnecessary exertion. But the mere thought of wanting the chick to fall to its death brought with it a pang of guilt. After all, Louis prided himself as a professional birdman, and a steward for these precious lives. He was, however, by this point, also quite worn thin by these continuous antics of Simon's.