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Saturday, October 13, 2012

Meet Wink: The Tenacious Finch!



I am in a bit of a funk over something that may be occurring re the health and well being of one of the birds which visits my garden, and, therefore, in my (unsuccessful) attempts to clarify what is going on with her, I was unable to post here on blogger yesterday as is my norm on Fridays!

The bird which I am concerned about is one of my house finches, who, as you can surmise from the images posted above, seems to be having an "issue" with her right eye!
It is hard for me to decipher if her right eye is stuck shut or if it is missing. This is because of my very limited eye-sight, which is an understatement, for, dear reader, as you know I'm legally blind

However, I did have my friend Michael look at some images of this sweet bird, and he agrees that her eye looks to be stuck shut and that perhaps it is missing entirely. 

However, in an effort to find out about this bird's condition, I've left messages with a well known bird watcher about my concern (but she has not returned my call) and I have been unable to reach anyone at the Central Park Zoo or Museum of Natural History, which is frustrating as both places are within walking distance from where I live! But, since it is the weekend, I will have to wait until Monday, when hopefully a staff at either place may be around to clarify matters, and let me know if there is anything that I can do for this truly sweet bird. Perhaps I should name her Wink, as my great grandmother was called (due to  the fact that she could only see out of one eye)!

Oddly enough, like my house finch, my main visual problem is with my left eye, as I virtually have no vision there (although I do see color)! Moreover, the vision in my right eye is extremely limited; and recently I received very disturbing news on the prognosis of that eye, as I discussed on tumblr, when I informed readers of the plight of red house finches: a group of birds who were wiped off the Eastern Sea Board in 1997, when they contracted a degenerative eye-condition!




In fact, it seems the red house finches which also visit my garden are quite concerned about their comrade's apparent plight; as evident in the image above, which features one of my red house finches who swooped in to offer advice to the finch I will now call Wink.

Even a young blue jay visited my garden this morning, and this little bird hid behind the pumpkins as seen below.



Perhaps she/he (I need to learn this bird's gender) is the offspring of my surprise tufted titmouse who showed up in my garden soon after it underwent a "renovation." Whatever the case may be, today's tufted titmouse made use of the pumpkins which Juan V and Alex E helped me to hang on one of my urban hedges (as part of my decoration for Halloween) this past week, as the pumpkins became a hiding place.The hedge I am referring to here can be seen below.




It is directly north of my Continus Coggygria (Smoke Bush) whose branches also provided a hiding place for this (so far) shy new feathered visitor, who looked to be a youngster! In any event, maybe this "newcomer" tufted-titmouse came to check on the status of Wink! 

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