Showing posts with label Bill Dilger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bill Dilger. Show all posts

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Lovebirds

I spent quite a bit of time watching these two peach-faced lovebirds in the pet store. Eventually I started worrying that someone would buy just one of them. That led to wondering if Bill would like to have them. Bill raised hundreds of lovebirds in decades of research on the evolution of behavior at Cornell. But he abandoned the lab in the 1980s and the last of the lovebirds died of old age at home shortly thereafter.

He was like a kid at Christmas (in his own understated way) when I asked him if he'd like to have them. So, they're happily living with him now. I think they're lucky. He immediately made a nest box for them, something a less knowledgeable person might not have thought of. He's looking for branches to use for perches, knowing the uniform diameter of dowels is bad for their feet. And the branches will run crosswise in the cage to give them more flying room (rather than lengthwise as they are in the cage we bought) . He knows that contrary to the instructions the pet store gave us, they don't care about eating fruit.

Maggy, we'll be needing names.

_

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Birthdays

Today is the birthday of Muhammad Ali and the House is debating a bill to honor him.
Debating may not be the right word since no one seems to be against it. They're just talking about it.

It happens, also, to be my father's birthday which is why I know it's Benjamin Franklin's birthday. I don't recall how many times my father had to mention that before it took on greater proportions than my father's birthday itself.

According to Birthdays in History, it's also the birthday of Betty White, Sheri Lewis, Vidal Sassoon, Maury Povich, Paul Revere (the musician, not the patriot), Eartha Kitt, James Earl Jones, Rock Hudson and an incredible number of other people I've never heard of.

My friend, Bill, shares a birthday with Adolph Hitler, Stephen Colbert, Pat Roberts and Lee Hamilton. Bill was born in 1923 so I can't help wondering what the daily horoscope was on April 7, 1943 as Hitler and Mussolini met in Salzburg and Bill prepared to ship out to the Pacific.

[Fabulous photo to be entered whenever Blogger allows it. Grr...]