The Birds of Pandemonium

by Michele Raffin

  Really, Mom? If there’s been any sibling rivalry in our home over the years, it’s been between the kids and those Mom-hogging birds. With little debate, their vote was for the obvious choice. We learned only later that pandemonium is also the accepted collective noun or “flock name” (as in gaggle of geese, covey of doves) for a group of parrots.

  Having found pandemonium such a felicitous choice, we looked up other flock names. Just a sampling of what we found:

  a wisdom of owls

  a murder of crows

  an ascension of larks

  an unkindness of ravens

  a siege of herons

  an ostentation of peacocks

  a mob of emus

  a parliament of rooks

  a lamentation of swans

  As these collective nouns show, we humans certainly have diverse impressions of these creatures of the sky. We credit some with beauty and wisdom and blithely defame others. Our attitudes toward them are complicated and our understanding so fragmented. How much better our relationships could be if it weren’t quite so one sided. I listen closely to our birds, and I talk to them all the time, even if it’s to whisper to the tiniest and frailest of them, “Come on. Live!”

  Sometimes, when I’ve been up all night with a struggling hatchling, I do wonder at the burden of hope we place on our small ark of survivors. You can’t do this sort of work without a lot of internal debate—especially in those lonely small hours. It’s hard to find words for the compulsion to know and protect this improbable flock. A hundred and fifty years ago, when Emily Dickinson wrote the poem so many generations of schoolchildren have learned by rote, she couldn’t have dreamed it would have fresh meaning as an avian conservationist’s prayer. It works for me and for our mission at Pandemonium.

  “Hope” is the thing with feathers—

  That perches in the soul—

  And sings the tune without the words—

  And never stops—at all—

  TWO

  One Dove Leads to Another, and Another . . .

  I had never held a bird before. Yet there I was by the side of the Lawrence Expressway near Santa Clara, dressed in crisp new gym togs and cradling a trembling white dove. It seemed badly hurt. As it lay against my palm, I could feel its panicked heartbeat; my own was racing as well. Balanced there amid the noise and hot wind of traffic and the blinding afternoon light, I felt a bit disoriented. The tall, well-chiseled man who stood beside me looked anxiously at his watch.

  I had set out just after lunch that day with a modest suburban mom’s resolve: Time to get back into shape. Our boys were growing, but I was determined that my hips and thighs would not. Though I was and still am an enthusiastic hiker, I had come up with a less conventional discipline to get myself fit again. I decided that I would lift weights—and not those dainty sets of dumbbells at a measly twelve pounds each. I meant the really heavy bar that you heave up over your head. I wanted to learn Olympic-style lifting, the kind with chalk on your hands, metal clanging, big weights thudding to the mat. Grunts. Moans. Bring it on!

  I had joined a gym that offered a promotion for three free training sessions. Matt, the trainer assigned to me, was six feet five, with zero body fat and a totally professional manner. Yet Matt was a no-show for our second appointment—or he was just very, very late. I paced, and then I fumed. I was about to take myself off in a Gore-Tex huff when he ran up from the parking lot and apologized. There was this bird . . .

  On his way to the gym, he explained, he had noticed a white dove by the side of the highway. It was flapping its wings piteously but unable to right itself or fly. Traffic roared past a few feet away. Matt was torn: there was a time-pressed, auburn-haired woman waiting with a “free session” voucher who must be served if he was to keep his job, and there was the wounded bird. He sped past the pathetic sight, thought better of it, took the next exit and doubled back. Gently, he moved the dove out of harm’s way and laid her beneath a bush. And there he was, apologizing to me for his late arrival. Since Matt was probably expecting a tart rebuke, my question must have been a relief.

  “Would you mind if we checked on the bird?” He didn’t hesitate. “I’ll drive,” he answered, and we headed toward the place where he’d left the dove. Minutes later, there I was, on the side of the highway, lifting that few ounces of feathers and fear. She craned her neck to look up at me. I was a goner, though I didn’t realize it at the time.

  Most of us can point to fateful moments in our lives—turning points, enlightenments, the misty dawn of true love. But few of us recognize them without the wisdom of hindsight. As they’re happening, these moments can seem mundane, or completely absurd. So it was with the first glimmers of Pandemonium on that sunny afternoon in 1996. I just looked like a crazy lady by the side of a highway.

  It took us nearly an hour to locate a clinic with an avian vet, the only bird specialist within thirty miles. In that pre –smart phone era, Matt had stopped and checked a directory. When he called, they told him to come straight in. During the drive to the clinic, the dove fell asleep in my lap. Had I ever looked at a bird so closely? This one was pure white except for a faint beige-pink tinge around its eyes and beak. The feathers were surprisingly varied up close. Some were long and tapered for navigation; the head and neck plumage was short and silky smooth. The wings were furled against her body in perfect geometry, smooth and snowy white. She was lovely, very still, and barely breathing. I saw no obvious injuries.

  I knew almost nothing about any birds, not even the names of the ones singing in my garden. They were free, self-sufficient creatures with lives and concerns that soared way above my head. Certainly I hadn’t imagined this trembling vulnerability, or its power to move me. I know now that if the dove had struggled when I picked it up, I might have killed it by tightening my grip. In order for birds to breathe, muscles in the chest must be able to push the sternum outward. Impeding that movement by holding a bird too firmly around the rib cage can fatally stop its airflow.

  At the clinic, we were quickly waved through a waiting area with yapping Yorkies and lunging spaniels. I could feel the dove’s heartbeat quicken again as I held it safely above the commotion. We were ushered into an examining room and into the care of Dr. Sara Varner, a middle-aged woman with dark, curly hair pulled back into a practical ponytail. As she took the bird from me, I felt an almost physical relief. The dove was someone else’s problem now, poor thing. Matt was out in the lobby, phoning his next client and my babysitter. I hoped the treatment wouldn’t take too long.

  “No, it’s not my bird,” I told the vet. “It must have been hit by a car.” The exam began with the basics I recognized from the countless visits I’d made with our many family dogs and cats. The dove was weighed, its heartbeat checked, its body gone over nimbly by the doctor’s practiced hands. She lifted a wing, then said, “I thought so. Look at this.” She held the wing up carefully so that I could peer at the area to which she pointed. Two small punctures beneath the bird’s wing were rimmed with dried blood. “This bird wasn’t hit by a car. It was dropped by a hawk.”

  What colossal bad luck, to be pierced with talons midair, then dropped from a great height. How ruthless an undoing—but somehow not quite as random and unjust as being smashed by a speeding Toyota, I figured. What was that phrase? “Nature, red in tooth and claw.” Dr. Varner pointed out that it was nesting season for wild birds and that it was likely the hawk was on its way to feed fledglings when something made it abandon its prey. The babies might have gone hungry as a result. I was adjusting my perspective on the sad affair when Dr. Varner continued, with some heat in her voice: “These domesticated white doves don’t stand a chance in the wild. Their color makes them stand out, and the hawks have an easy time targeting them.”

  The bird could have escaped from a backyard dovecote. Or it could have been thrust into the wild after its part in a romantic wedding ceremony, a sacrifice that the bird might have been bred and sold for. Dove release has become a popular
coda to outdoor “I do’s.” It’s a pretty sight, but I had never considered the aftermath. Though doves are sent aloft to herald a couple’s upbeat future, the birds can be headed for an ugly fate. Unskilled in finding food, they might starve or end up as an aerial predator’s meal. Some die in traffic or by contact with electrical lines.

  The vet’s prognosis was grim. Deep, multiple puncture wounds caused by the hawk’s talons gave this bird little chance for survival. Dr. Varner respectfully suggested euthanasia. When a hurt wild bird such as a pigeon is brought to her clinic, she directs the person who brought it in to the nearest wildlife rescue organization. Most likely the bird will be euthanized there, but a small number do get saved.

  Pet birds found escaped and injured—say, a parrot hit by a car—will be sent to the local humane society with ties to a bird rescue group. Rescue organizations seldom turn down any bird in need; they’ll probably bring it back to Dr. Varner for treatment at a discounted fee. Once the bird has healed, the rescue group will try to arrange an adoption.

  The dove—neither pet nor wild, so badly hurt, and unclaimed—faced the poorest odds. A shelter wouldn’t even try to treat it, and there was almost no chance of survival. So why not end it now? Transferring a badly injured domesticated dove to a shelter where it was certain to be killed would merely prolong its pain and suffering. Dr. Varner would have done what many vets routinely do with a badly injured wild bird. She would have wrung its neck. Such an end was quick, merciful, and mindful of the tough economics of animal rescue.

  I absorbed all the logic. I’m sure I did.

  “Please, please try to save her,” I pleaded. “I’ll pay even though she’s not my bird.” The vet hesitated. Finally, reluctantly, she said, “Leave the bird here. I’ll do what I can.”

  From her makeshift gurney—a towel set in a plastic container—the dove looked directly at me. She lay still, almost serene, as Dr. Varner explained about IVs, heat, and supportive care that involved an oxygen chamber. I hardly took it in, impatient to check back in to my own life. I had nothing at home for dinner and I would have to beg the sitter to stay, pick up my car, dash to the market. Worse, it was almost rush hour. As Matt and I headed out, Dr. Varner said she would call if there were any changes with my bird.

  “My bird? No, she’s not. But I’d like to know how she is.”

  I figured that was it.

  The next day, after I dropped the kids off at school, I drove the half hour to the clinic to visit the dove. I had no idea why; I simply surrendered to the compulsion. The bird looked up as though she recognized me, struggled to get up, and fell back. But the vet tech had good news: since the dove was able to eat that morning, the antibiotics were probably working against any infection. I kept going back, a full hour of driving for each round-trip. By day three, the dove could stand. Again, she struggled to her feet when she saw me come in. By day four, she was out of the oxygen chamber and breathing well. The next morning, as I finished breakfast with the children, Dr. Varner called.

  “I’m very sorry to tell you that your bird died early this morning.”

  I stammered my thanks for her efforts and hung up. Was I crying? Why? Okay, I’d gotten involved—somewhat. Still, the emotion caught me off guard. I snapped the local newspaper open in front of my face to screen my distress from the kids. Later, I had to admit that my reaction, outsize though it seemed, was pretty much in character. As a child, I had sobbed through Lady and the Tramp seven times, inconsolable at the cruel snubbing of Lady’s mongrel love interest. Growing up in Puerto Rico, I was the de facto animal rescue agent in our suburban San Juan neighborhood, the “please can we keep him?” kid who was always bringing home stray cats and dogs.

  After I moved to New England for college, then west to the Bay Area in my twenties, I volunteered at animal shelters. I even helped find sanctuary for a baby zoo elephant that was about to be sold to a foreign circus. I’ve always felt a strong connection with animals, along with a deep revulsion for their suffering at human hands. The truth is, I need them in my life. It’s a connection that settles and comforts me in a direct, nonjudgmental way that people can’t often provide.

  As a single businesswoman, I had always had dogs when I could manage it. Once I was married and we found a newly built spec home on one pretty acre in Los Altos, there were rarely fewer than four or five animals underfoot. In the early nineties, after our youngest son, Nick, was born, I had planned to return to my former, quite lucrative career as a venture capital consultant in Silicon Valley. A series of health issues with the children made that untenable. If I was going to stay at home, I was happy to have furry allies to absorb some of the energy and emotion churned up by three boys under seven and Tom’s preteen daughter, Lizzy.

  It’s no surprise that I lacked the fortitude to resist the pair of baby chicks our oldest son, Ross, begged to bring home from a kindergarten “hatching lesson.” The fuzzy babies stayed in his room—with Ross taking them for daily outdoor play sessions—until they were feathered. By then it was clear that we had a rooster and a hen, and a potential dynasty in the making. Ross didn’t take it well when we told him his birds would have to move outdoors. So when we had a coop built, I promised him it would look just like a comfy extension of the house. Inside we hung a funky iron chandelier with welded farm animal shapes that I had found at a garage sale, and there was a porch with an old wicker sofa.

  That airy, decorated chicken coop was a prototype of sorts for the sixty-three fanciful, themed aviaries that have since gone up around it. To me, creature comfort is a basic right. All beings in my care should have clean, safe, attractive surroundings; all should be allowed to “walk in beauty,” as the Navajo say. Captivity, even for safety and conservation purposes, is a thorny issue. So why not soften wire mesh with eucalyptus branches and live shrubbery? Why not install a soothing fountain, or station a huge Buddha to cast a benevolent gaze over a feed bowl? Why not, every now and then, let the chickens sashay through the kitchen? I suppose that’s the insistent question that’s tugged at me through scores of subsequent avian adoptions from private owners, breeders, and rescue groups. Why the heck not?

  There is another, more basic impulse that moves many of us, whether you’re an animal shelter volunteer, or you foster a service dog in training, or you raise funds to neuter feral cats—or you’re a well-trained avian scientist returning endangered whooping cranes to the wild: somebody needs to do this.

  OUR GROWING MENAGERIE had formed a pretty affable community in the backyard. At the end of the day, they would appear in formation outside our glass kitchen door. It was a comic lineup: two dogs at the back, three cats in the middle row, and the chickens up front. The chickens were in charge of pecking at the door to remind me it was dinnertime. Their rat-a-tat was like clockwork.

  This controlled chaos made me happy. So why, surrounded by children and animals for the usual raucous breakfast hour, was I still moping about the dove? As I blinked back those surprising tears, I wasn’t really reading the paper as much as hiding behind it. I waited to hear the ding of spoons scraping empty cereal bowls. Focus, I told myself, scanning the accounts of flower shows and high school wrestling matches. Boldface lettering caught my eye in an ad: DESPERATELY NEED A HOME FOR A WHITE DOVE. WILL PROVIDE A MONTH’S WORTH OF FOOD.

  Kismet. Fate. What were the odds? Maybe I could still “rescue” a dove and even the tally. Once the kids were off to school, I decided to check it out. Though it was just 7:35 a.m., I called the number in the paper, strangely excited. It rang several times before a sleepy woman’s voice answered. Her tone brightened when I asked about the dove. She introduced herself as Eileen and said that I should come over straightaway if I wanted to adopt her doves.

  Had I heard plural? The ad clearly read “dove.” She quickly reverted to the singular form. Yes, Eileen really loved her dove, but it couldn’t coexist with her plan for a new business: wedding-release doves.

  I got over there pretty quickly. Eileen’s cottage and yard we
re small, picturesque, and prim; white fences were draped with purple flowering vines. White gravel walkways had tall, whitewashed aviaries flanking each side. They were filled with the dazzling flutter of white doves, dozens of them. These were ringneck doves, like the one that had died. Eileen said that she needed their aviary space for a new flock of birds. Everything else was all set; she had fancy filigreed transport cages and an elegant dress to wear when she performed wedding releases. Buying the ringnecks was the only misstep in her business plan.

  “I really need white homing pigeons,” Eileen explained. “As long as they’re white, no one will know the difference.”

  As I’d soon learn, there really is no appreciable difference between pigeons and doves. They’re both names for essentially the same sort of bird, members of the Columbidae family. Within that category, though, there are many species with quite distinct characteristics. Homing pigeons are domesticated rock doves that have been bred over centuries to find their way home across great distances. They can be extraordinary athletes. In 1885, the New York Times reported the triumphant return of a cock homing pigeon known as the Red Whizzer, who took 12 days, 23 hours, and 45 minutes to fly 930 miles from Pensacola, Florida, to Philadelphia, a world record at the time. The Whizzer was retired with golden leg bands to commemorate his feat. Flights of double his distance have been recorded since then.

  Eileen’s requirements called for homing pigeons with a far more modest range for her local business. She realized that she was better off with a boomerang stock, able to find the way home after the weddings, thus saving the cost and disruption of replacement doves. The homing pigeons that she had ordered were due to arrive soon and they needed the real estate.

  To be fair, Eileen really was an animal lover—a houseful of pampered Persian cats attested to that. Buying the ringnecks had been an honest mistake. But even homing pigeons released too close to dark at evening weddings can be in serious peril, as navigation can be more difficult. Failing to check for impending storms before a release is another form of negligence. It’s enough of a problem that a responsible segment of the industry has developed a bird-handling code of ethics.