Pigeon eggs - baby pigeons, etc.

As my grandma would say, I put the horse before the cart...I had intended to post first, a picture of a small egg incubator with a pigeon egg in it and second, a tiny baby pigeon just hatched and finally, the picture of a day old baby pigeon that did make it through my clumsy attemp to post photos.

Maybe another day I will manage to post a picture of the egg in the incubator.

Pigeon eggs are white in color and small, about 1 &1/2 inch in length and about 1 inch high. The babys when hatched are very tiny. When left in their parents care the baby will double it's weight in 24 hours. In the wild they develop incredibaly fast. Development is much slower when hand raised . The baby in the photo above is one day old. If he had been with his pigeon parents he would have been much larger than he is in the picture.

I found a baby pigeon that looked to be about a week old that had been attacked . It's scalp had been torn away and his skull was exposed. Remarkably, he susrvived the damage to his head. He will be forever bald with no feathers on his head but he is alive.

It has always amazed me that birds and animals seem to know who will help them when they are in distress ( see the recent post " The Hitching Pigeon" . ) I could cite numerous other instances where birds literally cried out for help. For example, several days ago I stepped outside and several pigeons flew toward me. One of them literally flew into my foot then he landed beside me so close that I nearly stepped on him. He had apparently been attacked and there was damage to his back. He let me pick him up and put him in a cage where I can care for him and eventually when he is healed , set him free. He surely did know how to get the help he needed.

Till next time.

Marion Springer

Oh , My Poor Puppy !

Meet Connie, one of my two Dobermans. Connie and her brother Buddy are my 21 month old pups . They are a lively pair.

Friday had already been a long day. My daughter and I had just returned home from a day in town . It takes an hour to drive to town from our home in the desert and an hour to get back home .

Friday's trip to town had included a visit to the doctor which had taken up much of the day so both my daughter and I were happy to finally get home and I was looking forward to just taking it easy for what little was left of the day.

But as it turned out, relaxing was not an option. We were soon on the road to town again !

My two Doberman pups and our other little dog were happy to have us home and they were running around and being very frisky. Then I noticed a tuft of hair standing up on Connie's back . It was a fresh tear in her skin...a V shaped tear on her back . The legs of the V were about three inches long. It was nearly 4PM and every Vetinary office we called were closing at 5 PM.

There is an excellent Emergency Animal Clinic in town and they are open all night. Wouldn't you know, the Clinic had moved to a new location since we had last used their services so that entailed some driving about to locate them. Their new location is so new it doesn't even have the name on the building , so that really made it hard to find!

But we did find them and Dr. Edwards stitched up the tear in Connie's back. Connie and her brother Buddy, have a condition known as Von Willibrand's disease. What that means is that their blood does not coagulate as it should and should they sustain an injury and start bleeding it could be fatal to them. Fortunately, the tear in Connie's skin was not bleeding.

Connie spent the night in the hospital and she is home now and is wearing a hood to keep her from pulling the stitches out. She is very unhappy having to wear the hood . The white item you can see in the photo is one of the drain tubes which the doctor placed in the tear. I don't know what she caught her skin on to cause the damage but she is going to be Ok and I'm happy about that. My budget took a big hit with the emergency repair service but she is worth it!

Till next time .
Marion Springer

The Hitchhiking Pigeon

I had been down working on my gyro hangar all day and finally packed up the tools and started for home about a mile and a half away. I hadn't gone very far when I saw the pigeon.

He was just standing there along the side of the road . I stopped the car about even with him and he didn't move at all. I approached him , talking to him all the while and still he just stood there. I had the feeling that he was waiting just for me.

He walked a few inches away and then stopped and waited for me to pick him up. He didn't struggle, or try to get free. It was eerie , but nice too.

I held him during the ride home he was very relaxed and comfortable, not struggling at all. A large flock of pigeons live on my place. When the new bird is well settled I will put him outside with the other birds .

My daughter Linda had a pigeon that called out to her for help. Linda was sitting on the porch when a beautiful black and white pigeon circled her several times just screaming. The pigeon landed nearby and we could tell that it was injured.

Later that evening it went into an open cage and we closed the cage door and cared for the bird for several weeks until her leg healed .

When her leg was well we opened the cage door and set her free. She spent quite a bit of time sitting and staring at Linda's window.

It was obvious that the bird wanted to be taken in so Linda took her into her home and the pigeon became Linda's beautiful Lacy . The black and white speckled bird was in pigeon heaven living with Linda.

Birds are smart. I don't know if the hitchhiking pigeon I brought home had followed me when I left home that morning or if he was a total stranger to me and just needed help. He doesn't appear to be injured . I think he was just lost and probably scared for it was getting late in the day with night not too far away .

He knew when I stopped that I would help him . He was very happy to get some food when I got him home and settled in . He has a home for as long as it pleases him to stay here.


Till next time.
Marion Springer

My Bensen Gyrocopter, Born Free

There is a caste system in aviation that says , bigger and more expensive aircraft are better and more deserving . I have to admit to belonging to that system way back in the early 60's when my husband Docko, saw an ad in Popular Mechanics or Popular Science, or some such magazine, about something called a " Bensen Gyrocopter".

The picture was of a small machine that looked like a tiny helicopter where the pilot sat out in the open , very exposed to everything and was held onto the fragile looking machine by a simple seat belt ! My guy was in love with that machine ! It was all he talked about . I tried to tune him out for I was a real pilot ! I flew AIRPLANES...real aircraft, in other words. And that pile of square aluminum tubing didn't fit my picture of a real flying machine. The old caste system was alive and well !

He tried various methods to get me to warm up to the gyro. He touted the fact that it came in kit form and he would build it himself, therefore it would not cost a fortune to build.

Further, he could teach himself to fly it and fly it out of our back yard...that was what the advertisement said anyway. He persevered and finally started buying gyrocopter kits and building his dream machine.

Skip ahead to where it was finally finished and we flew it. My first lift-off in his gyro and I lost my heart forever to that funny looking machine.

All that was way back when my children were very young ( the oldest one is 58 now ) and I have flown gyros all down through those years and loved every minute of it. Ok, I gave my hearing to the loud unmuffled McCulloch engine, but who can say that I wouldn't have lost my hearing if I never saw a gyro ? The gyro gave me more than it ever took from me. The gyro and I are getting along in years but we're still flying and enjoying it.

The photo at the left is of me flying my Bensen Gyrocopter at the Ken Brock Freedom Fly-in a couple of months ago in September.

I still see the old aviation caste system at times , usually by high time corporate pilots , you know , the guys who fly the boss to some airport and stand around and wait all day for him to be driven back to the airport so the corporate pilot can fly him back home . The biz jets they fly can't possibly give one the pleasure that my simple little Bensen gyro does and has for so many many years . The small Bensen is living proof that less is more !

Till next time

Marion Springer , CFI - Gyro-ret.

Today I lost a Friend

His name was Bobby Bettis. He was a gyro pilot and belonged to the group of gyro pilots that I hang out with. He always had a smile on his face and a willing hand to help whoever needed his assistance.

I had been retired from gyro flying for several years after the passing of my husband but still I needed to be around gyros and gyro pilots. Bobby always met me with a hug and then he would hold his flight helmet out to me and tell me to go fly his gyro. I never did fly his gyro but his generousity in offering it to me spoke volumes about him.

When I decided to fly again, Bobby generously gave his time and expertise to work on my engine and bring it up to flying condition. In earlier days he had flown with the same make of engine so he had the necessary knowledge to make my engine airworthy. The engine runs just fine.

Bobby was a member of Chapter 1 and was a safety officer in that group. His pilot briefings at each fly-in were very professionally done. He also wrote a piece on safety for Chapter 1's monthly newsletter.

It was always pleasant to just sit and talk with Bobby. His was always a voice of reason and insight. He died today . I will miss him.

Till next time.

Marion Springer

The Snow of Winter of OH-8!

The photo to the left is of my daughter Linda's bead shop which is still under construction and in the picture the bead shop is also under a lot of snow!

That's the snow I was complaining about in the last post...the snow that doesn't seem to belong in sunny Southern California.

As you can see in the picture , it's all desert where we live...miles and miles of desert.

When the snow covered the area it was a very beautiful picture but now the snow is gone and we're back to just beautiful desert. The way I like it best.
Till next time.
Marion Springer

The Winter of OH-8 !

Snow, beautiful soft white snow. It's georgous as is drifts down and settles on everything below. When the sun shines on it , it sparkles like diamonds .

I love snow...I love it on the distant mountains, on Christmas cards, in Currier and Ives prints, I love it anywhere as long as it is not close to me.

Last week the snow was close to me. Nearly a foot deep close to me. For 7 days close to me. And I live in Sunny southern California where it is almost against the law for it to snow.

A winter storm came roaring down from somewhere and dumped the snow on us and for the first time in the nearly 20 years that I've been living in the high desert of Ca. we were snowed in, roads impassable, water pipes bursting, the whole nine yards of winter weather.

Usually each winter we will get one storm that drops a dusting of snow that is gone in a few hours, but not this time. I know , I know, I'm whining. My children say about me , " mom thinks a cold day is anytime the temperature is less than 80 degrees ".

We have it easy compared to those who live in areas where the winter snows bring many hardships but living down here in the beautiful desert of sunny California it is easy to get spoiled regarding the weather.

But now the snow is mostly gone from my place and the weather is sunny, ( cool 50 degrees sunny ) and lookin' good again.

As for me, I'm looking forward to those good old hot days of summer!
Till next time
Marion Springer