Monday, March 23, 2009

My Kaja Robert.

Nowdays it´s forbidden to have any wild swedish animals as pets (exept for badgers. Hunters need tame badgers when they train their burrovers for hunting). In most ways I agree with that law but it has a disadvantage. If You find a hurt animal You can´t take care of it Your self, it must be trained people (they get a license to help hurt animals from the city) to help them. If there isn´t such a person nerby You have to leave the animal to die. I don´t think any Sweed would do that, we have a tendensy to love animals more than humans and laws :-) I wouldn´t care about that law if I once again found an injured animal.


There wasn´t a bird in sight when I came home today, so I just put in the same picture of the Kaja i did yesterday :-)




Because that´s what happened when Robert came into my life. Robert was a Kaja (I found an American name for it I belive, Eurasian jackdaw) and that is a small (as big as a city dove) relative to the crow. I found him right after I had found a dead bird in a rat trap I had by my dogyard in Gotheburg. Normally I perhaps wouldn´t care so much about a hurt kaja, but after seeing the other bird in the rat trap I couldn´t just let it be :-) he (or she. I couldn´t see a difference) had broken his wing and was easy pray for any wild or tame animal. Even if he couldn´t fly he was really difficult to capture and when caught him he kept on struggeling. I have to admit that I was surprised over how strong he was in his beak. He didn´t let go when he got a grip on my finger and I thought I would loose it :-)



I didn´t feel like walking in the forest today, but regreted that decision when it started snowing :-)
Unfortunally the wing never healed properly so he could never fly again, but that didn´t stop him at all :-) The first two weeks he really hated me. If he could he aimed his beak towards my eyes and he bit me several times, but suddenly one day he got nice. Think he must have realised that he had to stay with me for the rest of his life and he was smart enough not to bite the hand that fed him :-) That did not however mean that he was kind to the other animals I had in my home :-) Espesially my cats were in grave danger when he was on the loose in the appartement. If they were asleep he very quietly walked to them and then take a strong grip in one of their ears and starting to pull away :-) He could grip some whiskers and pull them right out of the poor cats.

My dogs however he could be real nice to. If he could take a cookie from the table he then jumped down to one of them sharing it or just looking through their fur. I was only in danger when he was bored :-) he knew that it was forbidden to tare the wallpaper in small pieces. So if he wanted my attention he jumped to the nearest wallpaper and started to tare small pieces from it . He got my attetion I can say :-) There was only one problem with Robert, he smelled awful! I had to have a window open all year in his room (Yes he had a room for him self when I wasn´t at home). I don´t know if all birds in the crow family smells as bad as he did, but it was awful! Being an outdoorbird he didn´t mind having the window open.


I woke up this mornig and saw that it had snowed rather much this late night. It´s gone on the ground down in the village, but it can still be seen on the mountine.

In summer I had him at my dogyard. The place the dogyard were at was really built like an allotement garden. We had a small cottage (the doghouse) and a small garden and high fences. I actully think that it was the only place like that in Sweden. So I had my dogs there when I was at work. When I came home I fetched my dogs and went home or I could stay and sleep the night there. In that garden of mine I had a small apple tree and Robert lived there during summer. It´s easy to learn a Kaja how to speak, they are oftyen better at that then parrots, and so he sat there in the apple tree shouting what ever he had learned :-) Kajor can be really old, but Robert wasn´t that lucky. One day (a neighbour told me) he was walking around in the garden when a falcon took him. I hope that he didn´t have to suffer too long at least.

A sure sign of spring, they have started to spread manure over the fields.



So if I ever come across an injured Kaja or Crow I wouldn´t heasitate helping it, even if it wouldn´t be able to fly again. They are incrediable fun and intelligent birds, but this time it would have to be in a big cage outside. That smell is hard to forget :-)
Be good!

10 comments:

Wsprsweetly Of Cottages said...

What a great story that was! How long did you have him? I wonder what made him smell like that? I never knew what made my little finch smell so bad..but it finally left her. I loved the part about sharing his cookie...cute. Poor cats though!
You didn't say any of the words or phrases he learned. Do you remember them? It is sad the way he died. I am surprised he didn't win the fight with the falcon..but they are big hunters...and I doubt other birds would have a chance. Thanks for sharing!! :)

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Mona!
kajor eats everything and sometimes needs some meat and I thinak that it was the diet that made him smell or perhaps they just smell that bad :-)

Frases he said. Well his name, but they as well as parrots have problems with the letter R said it the sweedish way, almost´the way scotts saying it. So it sounded more like he sais Vobet :-) He was really good at saying "No Robert NO" He heard that a lot from me :-) God morning, bye bye and other short frases (all in swedisg of course).

Yes it was a sad way to go, but it was a fast way I think. Falcons are the fastest birds there is so any bird escaping is lucky and he not being able to fly made him an easy pray.

Well he was a really fun bird the three years I had him and I would do the same again if I found an injured bird, whatever the law says :-)
Christer.

Valerie said...

You always share the most fascinating stories...I don't think I have ever known another to be such an animal lover (well, maybe my sister, but I'm not sure even she would care for an injured wild bird indoors)! :)

I agree with Mona...poor cats! Owwww, I can't imagine getting a whisker pulled! Sounds like Robert smartened up or at least realized he better not bite the hand that feeds him!

Thanks for visiting! You are such a silly...what do you mean no experience with Barbies?!!! Ha Ha Ha!!!

Yes, I have quite wonderful memeories of growing up with Polish grandmothers (I am 100% Polish-American meaning that until I married, no previous generation had married someone other than another Pole). My great-grandparents immigrated from Poland to the United States in the late 1800s. My grandparents, while born in America in the early 1900s, only spoke Polish in their homes, schools, and community until the 1950s. My parents understand and speak a bit of Polish. They grew up hearing Polish spoken in the home and hearing Mass (Catholic) performed in Polish. I can neither read, write, nor speak a lick of Polish. The language has been totally lost on my siblings and cousins as we have married and moved outside of the ethnic neighborhoods our parents were raised in. That is both good and bad, but definitely a loss in many ways!

Take care of yourself!

Joanne Kennedy said...

What a great story! You are so kind to take in the injured bird and give him a good life.

I hate to admit it but I was laughing about how he would bite you and bug the cats. I know, I have a sick since of humor. I just thought it sounded like a cartoon or something.

But then getting to the end I wanted to cry. I know all animals have to die sometime but I hate to hear when it happens.

I'm like you and would gladly take in a sick or injured animal even if the law said no! I couldn't sit by and watch it die or suffer. Sometimes the law can be wrong.

Hugs,
Joanne

Anonymous said...

Great story too bad you had no pictures but I well know that when we have the honor of shareing some time with any member of the wild kingdon we form some everlasting memories and I thank you for shareing yours here.

Anonymous said...

... I said a prayer to St. francis Assisi, Heaven's animal lover and care-giver. I said a prayer for 'Robert' and for the many animals BeanBlogger and I and our sons would take in, or adopt plus our farm animals that weren't designated for the freezer.
How special you are to brong 'Robert' into your life! What a personality he had ... What a teaser ... We love animals and wouldn't be w/out them but at our age have only 'Murphy' and love her dearly! Wonderful story, Christer, brought back so many heart-warming recollections!

Blessings, AliceMary

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Valerie!
I don´t think that I then would have taken care of a wild animal if it wasen´t for that bird in the rat trap. I lived in an appartement and it wasn´t a good place to have a wild bird to be honest :-) But my neighbours were used to hear strange sounds from different animals so they thought it was funnt :-)
Now I live so much better, so nowdays it wouldn´t be a problem even if it smelled bad :-)
Christer.

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Joanne!
I think tjat You and I have the same kind of humor :-) How can one not laughe when hearing/reading something like that :-) I was amazed over how strong he was in his beak :-)

Yes, the law is wrong in some ways, but sometimes people take care of young animals that isn´t injured. They think that their mother has left them. Mostly this happens to deer younglings. Their mother only comes twice a day to visit them and the people think that they are left for good. It became a big problem here. But when it comes to injured animals I really don´t care aabout that law.
Christer.

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Woody!
Robert is really hard to forget :-) It´s a shame that I can´t find any pictures of him. A lot of my old pictures got lost when moving sometime. But who knows when I have another bird :-) But then I have to mail the pictures, never good to show how one is breaking the law :-)
Christer.

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi AliceMary!
St francis of Assisi is someone I admire a lot. I remember how I loved reading about him and his life many years ago.

Yes, if anything Robert had personallity and a lot of it :-)

I even have had a rat once :-) It was to old and big to get sold in the pet store, so he followed me home. They said that he only would get to be around three years old, so he had perhaps one and a half year left. He got to be six years old :-) But he was a really nice little rodent . Perhaps I should tell You about him to one day :-)
Christer.