HAVING FUN WITH ELLA, THE PIGEON, & THE PIGEON WHISPERER - PART III

“Ella Has An ‘Oops’ Adventure” 

After a hiatus of several weeks because of the snow where the pigeon and dove sanctuary was located, I went to see my sweet Ella and there was no hesitation.  The moment she saw me walking up the driveway to the aviary, she was on the nearest ledge waiting for me.  Being apart for those few weeks had made no difference at all and I breathed a sigh of relief.  I hadn’t been sure of her reception after not seeing me for a month . . .

. . . but there she was!  And so my weekly visits to see her continued.

One day, using my flip-top cell phone which has camera capabilities but is nothing like a ‘Smartphone’, I tried taking a series of “selfies” with Ella and me.  It wasn’t easy as I had to guess what the camera was seeing but I caught a few fairly good ones.  She didn’t mind me holding up my phone to take the pictures, so that was helpful.  Too bad the aviary screening was so much in the way, though.  I tried taking pix of us inside the aviary, but the other birds were skittish about it, so I gave up on that.

Here are some of the better snaps I got of us.

The Pigeon Whisperer gets a kiss. J

Sometimes she’d be on the floor of the aviary when I arrived in which case she’d come over to my feet and shinny up the screening to me - almost as if she was trying to find her way onto my knee again except I was standing up.

Occasionally I went inside the aviary and sat down on one of the tree stumps in there to see if she’d get on my knee like she used to, but for some reason she wouldn’t.  She’d climb on my foot, though, and if I held my hand down with food in it, she’d eat out of my hand – sometimes jumping on my wrist, but no more knee-sitting.  Shucks.  She did fly onto my shoulder once when I was inside, and another time, when I put my face right up close to her she leaned down and tucked her head under my chin.  It was the sweetest thing.

One evening, after Ella had been at the sanctuary for a while, she had herself a bit of an adventure - suddenly finding herself outside the aviary!

She’d been sitting on a ledge on the door into the aviary, as she’s pictured above doing, half asleep, when one of the caretakers came to put the birds to bed for the night.  Not realizing, in the waning light, Ella was sitting on the door ledge, she opened the door which sometimes stuck and had to be bumped open.  Startled, Ella awoke and flew out the door and up into one of the tall pine trees surrounding the aviary.  Oops.

The gal went ahead and put the other birds to bed in their little nesting boxes inside the shed attached to the screened aviary and closed the shed door.  Then came back out, exiting the screened aviary but leaving the outer aviary door open hoping Ella would come back, and waited.  But Ella stayed in the tree.  So she went in the house and waited some more.

It took a while, but Ella finally decided to go back inside the aviary and flew down from the tree.  The gals were relieved but one told me later if Ella hadn't come back and flown off instead, they would have contacted me to find out if Ella had flown back to us again!  But she’d been at the place long enough by then she apparently considered it her home now, so whew!

Next week:  Ella meets her match.

:->

La Nightingail