Chapter 44 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)
PIP, THE STARLING:

Pip was my only successfully raised wild bird. If I felt at all bad about raising a sparrow, it wasn’t as bad as what people think of starlings. ...Even what I thought of starlings. Strangely enough, I found Pip in my Church’s parking lot. So, that should remind me that whatever bird Jesus was referring to when it was translated to “sparrow” it could have been a Middle Eastern equivalent of a starling.

I had dropped by the church during the week to drop something off at the office and found the activities director chasing this bird. This man, Keith, said the bird wouldn’t stay outside. I found when one didn’t flail his arms about, it was easy to just walk over and pick up the scared starling. I wasn’t really sure it was a starling at the time. Catbirds are valued thrushes, and young starlings could be mistaken for one.

From the moment I picked up this bird, it nestled down into my hand, and thought of me as its mother, so there was no “finding the real mother” to take over the job of raising him.

I simply took him home. Pip, being a well-developed bird had to be taught to open is mouth for my feedings. August’s old guinea pigs’ cage fit in my bedroom window in a way so the door fit flush with the open window frame. The first morning we awoke to Pip’s squeaky-hinge voice, we saw that he had company, as two adult birds had perched on the outside wire of his cage… and they were definitely starlings attracted by the "...bird of the same feather."

My feelings about starlings mellowed once I got to know Pip. He was affectionate and trusting-- following me around chattering like a child who had just learned how to talk. Even the fierce look of his close-set eyes seemed to soften. I resented a bumper-sticker that read, “Clean up Binghamton--Eat a Starling.”

First Pip coveted the house and its hanging plants were he’d perch watching us. Then he coveted our hearts. Fearlessly he’d fly to our heads, and then hop down to our shoulders, then try to nestle between our collars and neck… some of us had long hair which gave him the comfort of a mother bird’s wings.

Like with the sparrow, we had to teach Pip to forage on his own. He had no trouble finding ants …then when back in the house, he would try to pick the newsprint off the newspaper. And like before, he totally depended upon us feeding him, then at some magic moment of development he suddenly began independently feeding himself. Before that time, our expeditions to the lawn and garden weren’t too successful. But he’d peck into the grass, and part it by opening his beak…very cute; very clever. However, once when barefoot, he pecked between my toes, opening his beak to part them as if looking for food. [Toe-jam?] I moved my toes thinking it would alarm him, but he excitedly pecked between them all the more.

We first gave him indoor flight lessons. As soon as he could gain height and fly to the high windowsills, I knew he was ready for the outdoors, and eventually… independence. The first day of outdoor flight, he would return to shrubs near the house and announce his presence. We were still feeding him, so I hadn’t expected he would leave, but when he was let out in the evening, he stayed out overnight. I was worried the first time, but in the morning he flew back to us, and announced that he was hungry with his noisy chattering.

My neighbor, Mrs. Washburn (Fessy), had said she would have the Naturalist Club band him, but I never knew when Pip would be around for this “ceremony.” Pip had been flying off and returning at will for several days when I saw Fessy outside mowing her lawn with her old fashioned non-motorized push mower--She said it not only did the job, but gave her healthy exercise. I asked her about the bird banding. She said they were up to our place several days earlier. I apologized for not being there so he could get banded. She said, “Well, we figured that the tame starling that flew to one of our shoulders was your bird, so we banded it.” I hadn’t even noticed his new bracelet… Our Pip now had the distinction of a bird-band registered with the Binghamton Naturalist Club.

Once I knew for sure that Pip was independent, I drove him to a small nature preserve off Bunn Hill Road and let him go. It made me feel good , but sad at the same time. I wondered what would become of him… like so many other mysteries of recognizing a wild animal and then it wandering out of our life, I was to never know how his story would end. When seeing a flock of starlings, I’d sometimes call, “Pip! Pip!“ hoping he’d have found the old neighborhood and fly down to my shoulder. I prefer to think of a happy ending to this story, and that he lived a long, happy, wild and free life.