AtoZ of Animals I have met: “H” is for Hairy and Mercurio #AtoZBloggingChallenge#

 When I decided to name the baby buzzard that Nino brought home for me to mother (have I mentioned that there is a sort of affinity between birds and me?) Hairy, they all thought it was for Harry Potter, because of my obvious liking of the magical boy; I had to tell them that I was thinking of the word “Hairy” because he still had a lot of his down, which hung like strands of hair.

Okay, I have an affinity with birds, as many can tell you, but man! I had never played the part of a mother buzzard before. All I can say is that it’s a good thing I’ve seen a documentary or three on rapacious birds, so I knew that the mother bird ate the food and then shared it with her babies.

And no, there is no way in this world that you can get me to chew up raw meat. That’s why they invented knives: to mince chicken livers so you can feed baby buzzards; that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Also because it’s true. So, I whipped out my handy dandy knife and minced my chicken livers and started my life as a buzzard mom.

Nino wasn’t really certain where Hairy had come from, but since a couple of days later my daughter’s boyfriend brought me another, which he named Mercurio, and which he had found in the same place Nino had found Hairy (the restaurant where Nino was the Chef) we surmised that they had probably both fallen from the same nest.

The common belief that buzzards and vultures look alike is a terrible misconception, although I will admit that I could wholeheartedly believe it at the time, covered from head to ankles with a mixture of pinfeathers and down, as they were. No, buzzards are beautiful birds, and are also a protected species in Italy – as well as in the US, I have just discovered – so what we were doing was also illegal; there is, however, no way I can turn away a baby of any type that needs my help.

I did my very best to be a good mom for those two bird waifs. And for once, Nino also did his part. He brought a big cage home where they could stay unharmed (we had a dog and a cat at the same period). They knew us; whenever they saw Nino or I they started to trill. They also graduated from chopped chicken livers to whole rabbit livers and moved from inside all day long to being outside during the day.

Their feathers grew in and suddenly they looked just like the bird here to the right, and we knew it was time to teach them two more things: they had to learn how to catch their own food and last, but not last in order of importance, how to fly.

The first wasn’t terribly difficult: we would toss the liver in the air and they would jump up and catch it. The second was a little more difficult, and a bit stranger. They had learned how to imitate, so Nino would run, flapping his arms and I would nudge them off my arms and they’d flap their wings and fall beak first into the soil. Oops! We’d try this several times and then let them rest.

And then, the long-dreaded day came; they took to the air without doing a beak-break dance, circled, trilled and flew off. I was heart-broken, but then, what mother isn’t when her fledglings take off on their own.

Epilogue

A couple of years later, Nino was out with one of his friends, herding the friend’s sheep. The sheep were grazing, and Nino and Gino were stretched out on their backs in the lush green summer grass. Suddenly, they heard a trilling sound; looking up, they saw that a bird was circling above them. It took a lazy downward spiral until the buzzard landed next to them on the grass.

It stayed with them for a couple of minutes of minutes, trilling the whole time. And then, as slowly and lazily as it descended, it spiraled up again, circled twice, and left.

Coincidence? Nino didn’t think so, and neither do I. My only question is: Was it Hairy or was it Mercurio?

 

 

Copyright © 09 April 2021. Mary E. Purpari. All Rights Reserved.