Monday, March 18, 2013

SAMMY DEAN MARTIN








When I had my shop in the Seven Arches, the Rock Martins used to come and nest on the veranda.  It was always fun to watch the progress of the babies as they grew and then learned to fly.  One morning, one of the babies was on the floor, and having survived all the feral cats in the area, I thought it deserved a second chance.  I'm quite sure the other two chicks kicked it out, survival of the fittest and all that, but I decided to help this one out.  I found a Samsung box in my cupboard and let it sit there.  It grew so tame that it would hop out the box onto my desk and up my arm.  Everyone was coming up with names.  In the end he was called Sammy Dean Martin.  Work that one out. :-).

After eight days of hand feeding and caring for for him, I sat with him on the veranda and put the box below the nest.  The parents, after all that time, would swoop down, one at a time, then settle on the sign just above the box.  Then they both sat there looking at him, and then they started to sweep down over him.  I was really amazed.  So I decided that I would try and put him back in the nest and just watch what happened.  I phoned my good friend Athol and asked him if he had a very long ladder, which he did and he replaced the chick for me.  What was even more amazing, was that they accepted him back and we watched him grow and take his first flight.  He hung around for a long time and I'm convinced it was him who came back to nest next to his old home, as he would fly low over me and settle next to me.  And then I watched him raise his family.

1 comment:

Chanel Piccione said...

this is such an amazing story!!