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Saturday, October 20, 2012

The Plight of Wink

Words In Our Beak’s goal is to open readers to a simple understanding of the winged world and their environment. Set in a rooftop urban garden in New York City, my story is told in the voice of Cam, a female cardinal, who visits it. Words In Our Beak is directed to children and adults who are curious about birds, and want to learn about them from a unique perspective. The book includes hundreds of images of flora and fauna, links to movies, as well as to informative narratives that have been created by the author.  Now in Apple’s iBooks store @ https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/words-in-our-beak/id1010889086?mt=11

The bird pictured here, I've named Wink, due to what seems to be her issues with eyesight. 

say "seems," because of the appearance of her eyes  — an appearance that still has me puzzled, as in spite of my phone calls to organizations associated with birds, and my subsequent sharing of my images with one of the places I contacted, I have not been able to get any answers on whether the eye issue is due to a missing eye, or due to a type of conjunctivitis which wiped out house finches in 1997.

The "1997 wipe-out" is something that I've mentioned here on blogger, as well as a couple of entries on TLLG's tumblr pages, including one which you may refer to by clicking here.

As you probably surmise, dear reader, even if one has good eyesight, unlike yours truly who is legally blind, it is hard to differentiate between visiting birds within a "family" of a given species in terms of identifying them as an individual, unless they have been "saddled" with an "ankle bracelet," as is the case with a different house finch who visits my garden!

She is the one I've named Ms. Fashion-a-BILL, due to her "bling" bracelet, and I have identified her as an "escapee," in features here on blogger, as well as on tumblr (that you may read by clicking here). Moreover, she may be seen in the image below.


Words In Our Beak’s goal is to open readers to a simple understanding of the winged world and their environment. Set in a rooftop urban garden in New York City, my story is told in the voice of Cam, a female cardinal, who visits it. Words In Our Beak is directed to children and adults who are curious about birds, and want to learn about them from a unique perspective. The book includes hundreds of images of flora and fauna, links to movies, as well as to informative narratives that have been created by the author.  Now in Apple’s iBooks store @ https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/words-in-our-beak/id1010889086?mt=11

It is tragic to think she may be flying around with one eye, but if she has conjunctivitis, it most likely will spread to other birds and if their eyes become crusted over, as they apparently did with other finches in the 1990's, they are all once again at risk of death due to starvation re an inability to see food sources.

And, besides, it seems my one eyed-finch can find food as evidenced by the image at the top of today's blog entry; however, her situation is distressing to me! Below is another angle of the image at the top of today's entry for you to study.


Words In Our Beak’s goal is to open readers to a simple understanding of the winged world and their environment. Set in a rooftop urban garden in New York City, my story is told in the voice of Cam, a female cardinal, who visits it. Words In Our Beak is directed to children and adults who are curious about birds, and want to learn about them from a unique perspective. The book includes hundreds of images of flora and fauna, links to movies, as well as to informative narratives that have been created by the author.  Now in Apple’s iBooks store @ https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/words-in-our-beak/id1010889086?mt=11

And, as I did last week, I am asking, can you tell if her eye is swollen, partially closed, or missing? Or do you know of a resource that I might turn to re Wink's plight?

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