The Birds of Pandemonium

by Michele Raffin

  It took me a long time to see past the horror of it; I was tormented by thoughts of those beautiful creatures dying, one by one, frightened, starving, being torn apart by predators. I walked around the house in a sort of protracted mourning, distracted and straggly haired. After a few days, Tom shook me out of it: “You’re scaring the kids.”

  He was right. My juggling act between birds and kids had become lopsided. I owed the boys an explanation for the turmoil and for my upsetting behavior. I sat them down and presented it as an allegorical bedtime story that had a happy ending: the missing birds were thriving in the wild, with lots of babies raised in sweet, safe freedom, for ever and ever, amen. They seemed to accept it. I wish I could have. I still cling to some hope that a few of the scarlet-chested grass parakeets survived that cold, stormy winter, but I know it’s highly unlikely. We have had more grass parakeets given to us and some babies born here. But I’ve never been able to name or get close to any of them.

  IT MAY NOT be as fanciful as the over-the-rainbow ending I made up for the boys, but we did find a heaven-sent carpenter—a master craftsman who also happened to have a deep knowledge of bird keeping. It came about by accident. I had wrenched my back lifting a sack of birdseed, and the chiropractor who restored me knew of a terrific carpenter.

  Actually it was a family of brothers. Johnny, the oldest, managed the projects. He had raised birds in the Philippines with his father—who had raised them with his father. Johnny loves and respects birds. All his crew are experts at netting birds, but Johnny also knows how to medicate, draw blood, design nest boxes, and figure out exactly where to put up perches. He is now an invaluable friend and ally. He and his crew keep all the aviaries—and my peace of mind—in very good repair.

  One morning, Johnny and I were working side by side catching birds in order to give them worming medicine. I realized that I had become much, much better at netting and holding birds and that I’d learned both techniques from watching Johnny. Previously, when I had wanted to net a bird, I’d chased the bird as it flew in panic trying to get away from me. Johnny’s method was to watch a bird fly for a minute or two before lifting the net and catching the bird. Birds in an aviary often become creatures of habit. If they fly from side to side in the aviary, they tend to take the same route and land in the same place, especially if the aviary is small. If you can predict where the bird will land, you can be ready to net it on that spot. When I employed Johnny’s technique, I was able to net a bird much more quickly and with a lot less stress on both the bird and me. Johnny also showed me a better way to hold a bird, using his middle finger and thumb to hold onto neck bones. I followed his lead, and presto! I was able to handle even birds with sharp beaks without being bitten or overstressing the bird.

  We work together at Pandemonium nearly every Saturday now, and we always talk birds. Watching Johnny’s crew build and maintain safe, beautiful habitats and handle the birds with respect and skill is a blessed reassurance. The low rumble of Johnny’s truck rounding the corner means the cavalry is coming, and I’m happy to open the gates.

  It’s not only humans like those first rogue carpenters who imperil our birds. Another great threat was a tiny, meek creature, but its effect was deadly. I was having one of those Edenic mornings in our backyard, enjoying the birdsong and the sound of water cascading down the fountain wall. I remember thinking, Life does not get better than this. And then I saw him. The interloper was a little gray mouse, staring down from a wire atop an aviary. I didn’t know enough about rodents to realize that they are normally nocturnal. If you see one during the day, there is probably an overpopulation of them running around at night. The mouse trembled at the sight of me, then ran off toward our neighbor’s yard. I put any thought of poison or trapping out of my head. What harm could a little mouse do?

  A lot. The Australian crested doves’ offspring were the first; then the adults succumbed. All fourteen birds were dead in a few weeks’ time. My stomach churned every morning when I went out to the Annex Aviary, where they were housed. I was afraid of what I would find. What was killing them? I called Dr. Varner and we went over every aspect of my bird husbandry. No, I hadn’t changed food, brought in new food, or sprayed anything with insecticide or another poison. Then she asked, “Having any trouble with rats or mice?”

  It suddenly dawned on me that for the past week, I’d seen something odd in one of the feeding dishes in the Annex. I wasn’t sure exactly where the little black flakes had come from. I thought that maybe the manufacturer had changed the formula and added a new type of seed. Then I made the connection: That cute little mouse. Rodent excrement contains bacteria that are deadly to birds. There was so much of it inside the Annex that I suspected there was a lot more than one mouse running around.

  Dr. Varner came to look at the aviaries and suggested ways I could address the problem. She insisted that I renovate the Annex right away. Gone was a fountain I’d had built. Gone was the natural floor made up of grasses, pebbles, and sand. I installed concrete flooring. It was ugly, but it was now possible to clean it by hosing down the surface. I hired an exterminator and fully rodent-proofed each enclosure. Finally things were stabilized. But I was left with some nagging doubts.

  Of course, I had called the Browns when my birds started dying. They suggested putting antibiotics in the water so that all the birds could be treated as a preventive measure. Dr. Varner didn’t agree. She insisted that I wait until a bird showed signs of illness and then remove the bird from the flock and treat it individually. Her reason was that antibiotics in water are impossible to dose accurately. Some birds might ingest too much while others got too little. I followed her advice and didn’t treat the birds until they were symptomatic, but by then it was too late; the sick birds died, and even more had been exposed. By the time the epidemic had run its course, I had lost thirty-three birds.

  I had great admiration for Dr. Varner and I was grateful for all that she had done for my birds, but I realized that there is a limit to veterinary knowledge about birds. Those who breed and live with birds have a practical, hands-on knowledge that draws much from experience and intuition. At times it seems as though breeders and veterinarians are working at cross-purposes. I’ve seen mistrust and skepticism on both sides.

  The breeders feel that vets charge a lot of money for too few viable solutions. Louis and Carol used to send their dead birds off to a well-known vet school so that necropsies could be done and the cause of death identified. At Pandemonium, we do that regularly, even though Carol had told me, “We spent a fortune but rarely got answers.” Many of the avian vets that I’ve met have little respect for bird breeders, complaining that they often don’t seek professional treatment for their birds and rely instead on medicines ordered from catalogs.

  I’d love to see more collaboration between vets and breeders. From my perspective, the best bird care would combine the science of veterinary medicine with the experience of breeders. I’ve also become passionate about trying to preserve the accumulated knowledge of breeders. Since the old-time breeders rarely wrote anything down and apprentices are no longer common, a breeder’s knowledge dies with him. If there were more documentation, all of us, including vets, could better take advantage of what breeders have learned through trial and error.

  Louis and Carol were extremely supportive during the epidemic of illness and death brought by the mice. They took turns telling me stories about times they’d screwed up. They listened patiently when I’d burst into tears discussing the loss. They’d been there. They had compassion, but they also had a broader outlook. Birds died all the time, they cautioned. And sometimes you had to do the unthinkable for the good of the flock.

  There is a terrible story about a bird epidemic that I heard at one of the Browns’ parties. Whether it’s apocryphal I can’t say, because Chet, the man at the center of the tale, died a few years ago. He was an experienced breeder in the San Diego area. The incident took place during an outbreak of exotic Newcastle disease, a virule
nt, always fatal virus that mainly affects confined poultry. In the 2002– 3 epidemic that hit Southern California and other parts of the Southwest, 3.16 million birds either died of the disease or were ordered destroyed by a government task force. Exotic Newcastle is most communicable in crowded environments like poultry farms. Chickens are the most vulnerable. Given the disease’s devastating toll, the official policy was scorched earth: Kill them all.

  Chet felt that his exotic species—isolated in their aviaries, far from affected poultry farms—were fine. There was no sign of sickness and no outside contact. So when a team of inspectors arrived with kill orders for the generations of exotic birds he had raised and loved over many years, Chet met them with a shotgun. He didn’t threaten the men but explained his position. His birds were healthy and didn’t need to die. The inspectors were adamant: Destroy them.

  Chet wheeled and turned the gun on a group of his birds. Each blast tore apart beautiful creatures he loved. The aviary became a hideous abattoir of feathers, blood, and screams. Chet was aiming at his fourth or fifth bird when the inspectors turned and retreated—for good. Either the man was crazy and dangerous or he was following their orders. They weren’t sticking around to find out which.

  Chet saved the rest of his flock with that dreadful execution of a few. I was hardly prepared when I was faced with a “kill” decision on a much smaller scale. The enemy was also unseen but deadly. And it had been living among us for months.

  The trouble began, I’m sure, with a pair of olive pigeons. I had noticed that they weren’t moving around much. I thought they needed a change of habitat, so I moved them to one of the sunlit back aviaries. The olive male seemed to have something on his wing, but he kept his distance and I couldn’t get a close look. Then the olive female died.

  I was getting tougher after that first round of fatalities. I wanted to learn how to do a necropsy, so I took the bird’s body to Louis, who had promised to teach me how to look for the cause of death. I learned some necropsy skills, but we couldn’t determine what had killed the pigeon. Louis thought it might have been complications from a burst egg, which would prove to be wrong. Then the male died, and the vet identified a growth on his wing as a manifestation of a mycobacterium. This could be devastating to all the birds that shared the aviary.

  Sure enough, we had another bird down soon after—a Guinea turaco could not fly. I had a special feeling for this gallant male, who had saved two of his babies after their mother died. He fed them, day and night, by himself. I moved him to an isolation cage and gave him antibiotics, and he started to improve. But the results from a biopsy done by the vet showed that he had an untreatable strain of the mycobacterium. It was probably the same strain, I now realized, that had killed the olive pigeons. It was vital that we know for sure, the vet insisted. By then, I knew too well what that meant.

  The disease would have to be speciated—identified—by a necropsy of a bird known to have it. If we hoped to find the proper treatment to save the other birds, we would have to euthanize the turaco and send his tissues to a lab to identify the mycobacterium strain. I made the decision, but I had someone else take the doomed turaco to the vet. In the end, two labs were unable to identify the strain. If there were any treatment, finding it would be nearly impossible.

  I asked several avian vets what I could do to protect the other birds from the spread of the disease. The answer was unanimous and devastating: Kill all the birds that have been exposed. For us, that would mean killing 90 percent of our birds, including the crowned pigeons and the green-napeds. It would all but wipe us out and further stress the populations of the rare species we breed.

  I was obsessed with finding a solution. The severity of the problem and the ticking clock left me frantic and sleep-deprived — not a useful combination. The family was sputtering along on autopilot when I suddenly realized that my best resource was right there at home. Tom is a pulmonologist and no stranger to treatment options for respiratory infections in humans. I asked for his help, and he consulted with some avian vets. Together they devised a drug regimen for the birds. But before we could try it, I had to identify which birds might be ill and determine how we would administer the medicine. An alliance emerged: A neighborhood pharmacist canvassed his professional association to help devise the best method of drug delivery. A breeder referred us to an out-of-state lab that would do testing for the disease for a very reasonable price. Volunteers helped net birds so that they could be tested.

  Thanks to our circle of experts, we had developed a protocol that seemed effective. The birds that tested positive were treated for fourteen months. Every time we retested, the results came up negative. Finally, recovery was under way. I won’t say I relaxed, but I had a little time to think.

  I took a hard look back at the gains and losses of this crisis period—the carpenter Ron’s misdeeds, the rodent-borne illness, and the mycobacterium—and realized that I didn’t have to try to figure everything out by myself. In the collaborative effort to save Pandemonium’s diverse flock, I found a community of like-minded people who are passionate about birds and active in leadership roles in bird research and conservation. And as the horror of Ron’s transgressions receded, and so many people came forward to help us in our time of need, I found a renewed faith in our own species.

  I also had a lot of bills. Four days for a single bird’s stay at a veterinary clinic could run to almost a thousand dollars. I had found a facility to do necropsies for free, but keeping birds fed and healthy was also becoming wildly expensive. We were buying seed by the pallet—and the ton. A local big-box store had been donating unsold fruit, but it wasn’t enough. The feeding bowls that go out to our avian fruit eaters every morning look as if they could easily be part of a four-star hotel’s brunch buffet: blueberries, pomegranate seeds, cantaloupe, papaya. An entire second refrigerator in our kitchen is filled with the upscale produce at all times. The family was not enthusiastic when I decided to save money by growing our own worms in the garage.

  I tried to be diligent in keeping records of the birds’ health as well as what I spent on them. Always, I’d vow to economize. I had a sign made for what I swore was the Last Aviary; soon there were the Next to the Last Aviary and the Last Last Aviary. But needs grew faster still. There were more calls from people who had lost their homes to foreclosure or were ill. The phone kept ringing: please, take my bird. Something had to change—and fast.

  THIRTEEN

  Let’s Get Serious

  Neighbors often drop in to visit our birds. At one time we also welcomed strangers—passersby, bicyclists, hikers headed to the nature trail across the street—who wandered up our driveway past Pandemonium’s inconspicuous mosaic sign. Now that we breed rare birds, we need to give our birds privacy, so we are closed to all visitors other than friends. In the early years, more often than not they were drawn by the brash, trumpeting honk of our two East African cranes. Ferguson is the default town crier and self-appointed gatekeeper, but Olivia can summon a mighty wind as well. Their towering aviary is near the Pandemonium entryway, with a giant gold Buddha at its center. Both cranes like to perch high on a ledge, where they dance, preen, and posture to the delight of the gawking, flightless souls walking on our path or on the street below. If Amadeus is our front-door welcome bird, the cranes are our yard greeters. They often float down to the ground to say hello to visitors at the front of their enclosure. Coming face-to-face with such extraordinary creatures is an unexpected thrill for just about anyone.

  One day in 2009, a stranger rang the doorbell and asked if it was okay to look at the cranes. He introduced himself as Ben and said he had just returned from a tour of Africa, where he had seen cranes in the wild. He’d heard about Pandemonium and wanted to visit our cranes. I decided to walk out with him and take him through the long way, to see some other birds and the grounds. Ben was amazed when we walked through the gate.

  “I had no idea . . .”

  I’d heard that before.

  It was
an eyeful. As we walked along the paths, everything was abloom: gardenias, acacia, geraniums, flowering hedges and herbs. Annuals spilled out of pots and mosaic troughs; eucalyptus and manzanita branches and live shrubs greened the aviaries’ interiors. Food and water dishes for the birds are made of brightly glazed pottery, heavy enough to withstand tipping by impatient diners. Along the stone-and-pebble paths, we have planted bird- and butterfly-friendly plants like buddleia (butterfly bush), raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, lantana, and salvia for our wild avian visitors. Benches to sit on and observe birds dot the landscape.

  The path to the cranes’ big aviary passes through a courtyard that houses the parrots and macaws. Those companion-bird aviaries are equipped with enough enrichment toys to stock a preschool; the big cage marked TICO’S TERRITORY is hung with rope pulls, bright wood blocks, bells, and, of course, a dummy lock or two to pick. There is art everywhere: statuary, mosaic birdbaths, sculptures and decorative lattices bolted to aviary walls. Found objects from yard sales, donations, or the flea market—from funky watering cans to a gaily painted Costa Rican donkey cart—have been repurposed as planters. Inside and outside the Saint Francis Aviary, there are half a dozen likenesses of that venerated animal lover from Assisi who is most often depicted with birds on his shoulders and arms. Even workstation sinks, gates, and doors have some mosaic flourishes, thanks to a talented and prolific local artist who can’t seem to stay away. She says she finds inspiration here.

  Add the rainbow flash of exotic wings, and it’s a lovely place to be. Pandemonium is a very happy village most of the time. Sometimes I’m apt to forget this as I fuss over a loose hinge or a lethargic-looking pigeon. That day, Ben was a quiet and patient listener as I voiced my frustrations over maintaining so many birds, the work involved, and the financial burden. I must have been especially tired. I wasn’t complaining so much as trying to figure out how to do a better job of caring for everybody. It turned out that Ben himself ran a foundation and knew a great deal about nonprofit organizations.