Matilda Update

Even though last year I composed more posts than ever (185) in all my years of blogging,

I still ran out of time to post things from last summer before winter came etc.

So bear with me as I catch up a little bit here and there with some posts that were left behind!

So as a very brief recap on Matilda the pigeon, in case your new to my beloved blog;

At the beginning of last summer
(read about us finding her right here)
we found a baby bird in the middle of the road who clearly needed help
(she grew into this gorgeous creature)

We brought her home, intending to care for her a day or two or at least until she flew away.

But she ended up learning to fly and stayed with us...she stayed with us all summer...
(click right here to read a blog post about our days with her)

She'd come outside into the yard with us but never flew away,
she'd always come back into the house...

She was lovely and we did fall in love,

it was hard not to, click right here for one of my favorite moments with her.

I'll never see pigeons the same way again and now they'll forever be one of my favorite birds.

 (She was hands down one of my most favorite things to photograph that season...

so I just have to post these last remaining shots of her that I haven't shown you yet.)

She was bonded to us...we to her...
(click here for one of our most perfect day with her from all of last summer)

but as she got older we realized maybe staying with us wasn't the best thing for her,

as much as we didn't want to let her go, we wanted what was best for this wild heart of ours.

We got concerned when we clearly couldn't' leave the room for even 5 minutes without her panicking about where we were and than swooping all over the house frantically looking for us.

We were able to be with her a lot, but there would be a lot of times when we wouldn't be home
and she'd have to go in a cage, because we couldn't have her flying around unattended,
pooing where the bunnies were etc...
so we got more and more concerned and questioned if we could really give this wild bird
the best home even though setting her free felt impossibly mean and hard to do...

.

We ended up talking at length with a local bird rehabilitation expert,
And she explained that yes, Matilda was attached to us

but given the real chance between us and a real flock, she'd likely chose the birds.

Her coming outside with us and not flying away was not unusual,

we had no pigeons around our house for her to identify with...
we were her flock so if we lived in the house,
that's where she figured she was suppose to live too...
(click here to see a bunch more photos of our life with a pigeon in the house)

So we decided, long before winter arrived, to give her the best chance,
that we wouldn't feel good about keeping her
if we didn't give her a real honest try at being wild.
We agreed not to force her, if she decided to stay with us than she was welcome to,
that we'd fit her beautiful heart into the family if need be...

My parents, luckily, were at the time feeding a large group of pigeons,
so we brought Matilda over there to meet their flock and as soon as we let her out of the cage,
she went to the birds (read more about her introduction right here)
but when they flew away, she didn't know to follow...
so back to us she came and back home we went to try again the next day.

Each day she got more and more involved with the flock and on that 4th day
when the flock flew away into the horizon and setting sun, our Matilda flew with them.

I get emails from people now and than asking if we knew how she doing
and whether or not I knew if she survived Winter...
Trust me I was wondering too...
every single time I saw a pigeon my heart would give a little twinge!
I am SO beyond thrilled to finally give you all an update and say

YES, she is doing GREAT
She finally made an appearance at my parents just the other week
and guess what...she knew her name, ha ha!!!

Dearest Matilda,
you'll always be one of my very favorite memories & experiences XO
(She has for sure inspired a story of her very own which hopefully someday I'll share)

More Matilda

I still have so many favorite shots that we got of Matilda the pigeon when she was living with us...

 

 

even though she's with her flock of friends now, I still want to show them all to you here on the blog.



A Perfect Day

Back when Matilda was here

This was one of my most favorite days of summer...

 

I worked on a piece with a tight deadline surrounded by buns, a sunning pigeon & my handsome hon.

It just felt like a perfectly perfect peaceful day.



Matilda Leaves

Well our special feathered friend was apparently not meant to join our motley crew long term...
(this won't be my last blog post about her though because I have so many
more beautiful shots and stories of her that I'd love to share with you).

 

 

Long story short...

I started calling around to try to locate a vet because we thought if she was staying,

we wanted to make sure our bird baby had a good doctor to help her out when need be...

 

 

but during that process we ended up talking with an expert,
a lady who rehabilitates wild birds all of the time, we had a good long chat about pigeons,
her knowledge was so helpful and very extensive...

 

 

We still had huge concerns about how happy Matilda would be in our house, she be in a cage,

alone, more than she'd be happy with & she wanted company 24/7 which we just couldn't provide

(not with September coming and both of having to soon get back to the bump and grind of things).

 

This lady explained that Matilda probably liked us a lot for sure,
but if we wanted to be sure that she really wanted to stay with us and be an indoor bird,
we'd have to give her the choice between us and a real flock of other pigeons...

 

 

So luckily, my parents have a big beautiful flock that they feed everyday...

So we brought our sweet feathered soul over there and almost right away she went straight to them.

It took 3 try's before she left but as hard as it was we knew we were doing the right thing.

 

The first time as soon as she saw them, she zoomed out of the cage and was skirting the group by a couple of meters, when a big impressive male saw her, left the group and came to her gently and invited her to join them and she did, timidly at first but still she didn't know yet to follow the group. 

 

 

So when they left, she waited for them but than eventually came back to us & back home we went.

The next day she flew right up into the tree to see them all...but the same thing happened,

she didn't follow them when they flew away and she came back home once again

 

But the 3rd time...she flew straight to them all again, a flock of about 40,

and at 11:00am on August 26th, when they all swooped out of the tree and flew away into the horizon

she was with them...she followed...with strength and beauty and grace.

 

 

She's doing really great.  My folks see her everyday...she's eating and doing all the normal things.

Today marks her first full week out there in the wild with all her buddies.

She's only the 2nd brown bird in the group and the only female so she's really easy to spot.

 



 It was so hard to let her go...but we knew deep down it was the best for her...

We wanted to keep her...we loved her.  We always will love that special sweet brown pigeon.

Every single second I waited with baited breathe, afraid the other would be mean to her...

 

 

Every second I had to hold my arms back from grabbing her and taking her back home again...

We miss her madly.  We hope she'll be safe but we do know she has great natural instincts.

She'll always be an amazing summer love affair, full of magic and beauty, never ever to be forgotten.

Me & Matilda

Me & Matilda or rather I guess its Matilda & I, we'll show you a sweet new ink drawing tomorrow...

 

 

We really like it...we hope you'll hop on over to see it (yes she's a pigeon that watches me draw!!!).