The WWII Collection. William Wharton

a matter of confidence. This yellow male can’t seem to work up enough confidence in the air to shove off. I watch him for hours, days. I become that bird. I know I can feel what he’s thinking, when he almost gets himself to do it, when he backs off.

      By now, each of them looks almost like a real canary. Their tails are still short and the soft flesh around the corners of their beaks hasn’t hardened; they still have little fluff y antenna-like hairs sticking out over their eyes. Other than that they look like canaries, only half-size.

      This yellow male finally makes the decision. Still, after he’s committed, he tries to go back, but it’s too late, he flutters down in a half glide to the far corner of the breeding cage. He slips and has a hard time standing on the slippery newspaper and gravel in the bottom of the cage. He starts hopping after Alfonso for something to eat.

      Now, sometimes a male won’t feed the babies unless they’re in the nest, but Alfonso seems prepared to accept the inevitable. For the next while, he’ll be the prime parent for the baby birds. He feeds both of the escapees, the new yellow male and the yellow female who’s been out for a day. It’s while he’s feeding these two that the dark male, out of pure greed, having nothing to do with flight or wanting to escape from the nest, comes flying down with a bump near Alfonso and starts begging to be fed. Here he’s made one of the most important moves of his life, his first flight, and all he can think of is food. He couldn’t stand to be up there in the nest while feeding was going on down on the floor. It’s easy to miss the important things in life.

      The last one, the spotted one, jumps later the same day. He’s a really timid one. He climbs out of the nest onto the perch and only winds up on the bottom because he can’t balance himself.

      They all huddle on the floor in a corner, trying to recapture the warmth and security of the nest. Whenever Alfonso comes into the cage, they chase after him and practically hound him to death with a continuous feed-me pleading. Alfonso’s very good with them and ferries food back and forth. I feel sorry for him and put a good supply of egg food in the bottom of the breeding cage.

      Now is the time I’ve been waiting for. I want to watch carefully to see how the babies learn to fly. At this point, they haven’t flown much more than I have.

      I watch them do all kinds of feather cleaning and wing stretching. They’re still so unsure of their footing they’ll almost fall over when they try to stretch a wing with a foot. They still can’t sleep on one foot.

      They’ve been getting a good deal of wing exercise during the feeding process. Probably without realizing it, this flapping of wings while being fed is flight preparation. I can’t see any other function for it except to attract the attention of the mother or father bird. They’re flapping those stumps long before there are any feathers on them. I determine to flap my arms at least an hour every day. It seems as good a place to start as any. It’s where birds start. I flap for ten minutes that first night when the babies are out of the nest and I can’t go on. In the morning my shoulder muscles are so stiff I can barely lift my arms. My chest muscles are so sore I can’t touch them.

      The first flights they make are up onto the lowest perch by the feed dish and water cup. It’s about the same kind of jump if I were to jump up onto a table. These baby birds are already trying to separate themselves from the ground. They seem to know that their place is in the air. At night, they struggle to get up onto that first little perch and somehow balance themselves. When you see their courage and determination, it’s easy to know why people can’t fly; they don’t want to hard enough.

      Most of the times when the babies make that first jump up onto the feeding perch they swing right on over and off the other side; they can generate enough spring with their legs and frantic wing flapping to get up there, but they haven’t learned to use their tails yet to stop themselves and balance.

      If these babies look at Alfonso and Birdie moving so easily from perch to perch, twisting, hopping along, without a thought, without an effort, it must be discouraging. Something like flying isn’t easy even for birds; it takes practice and effort. I don’t see anything of Alfonso or Birdie trying to teach them, the babies have to work it out for themselves. I notice, though, that when one baby has figured something out, the others pick it up quickly. They seem to be learning from each other.

      The next day, in the back yard, I use the old saw horses and a four-by-four as a perch to practice with. I put my perch up three feet and take a running jump flapping my arms. I realize how much spring those baby birds have in their legs already. If the spring in the legs develops in comparative strength the same as the wings, a grown bird must be able to hop even without wings, almost as well as a frog. It would be interesting to see how a bird growing up without wings would behave. I don’t mean a penguin or something that gave up flying to be able to swim, but a bird who naturally would fly but doesn’t have wings.

      That night my arms are deadly sore from flapping, but I keep it up. If those little birds can do it, I can, too. I get so I can jump up on the perch and stay there. My main problem is the same one they have, that is, stopping my forward motion and not going over the other side of the perch. I flap my arms to keep myself balanced.

      What I need is a tail. I could put some cloth sewn to my trousers between my legs, but that wouldn’t help. The tail has to be completely independent of the legs and controllable. Already those babies can tilt their tail up and down and spread the feathers. They got practice at this shitting from the nest. I’m still keeping up with them but already I can see that I don’t have a chance without mechanical help. The one thing I know is I don’t want a motor or anything like that. If I can’t fly on my own power, then I don’t want it.

      It’s the dark male who makes the first up-flight successfully. Alfonso’d flown onto a higher perch to get away from them after he’d finished feeding and this one flies right up after him. I don’t think he even thought about this flight either. Maybe that’s part of flying; you can’t think about it too much. I don’t know how I can stop myself from thinking about it.

      The dark male lands on the perch beside Alfonso and then, in the violence of his wing flapping for feeding, facing Alfonso sideways, gets unbalanced and tumbles off the perch. He catches himself midway and glides more than falls into the food dish on the side of the cage.

      The baby birds seem able to take an awful beating with their falling around, and not show any sign of it. This jump of the dark male was up at least four times his outstretched height; for me this would be like jumping up onto the roof of our house. I can’t even jump down that far without hurting myself, and he isn’t a month old yet. It’s discouraging, but I’ll watch more closely and practice. I know I want to fly at least as much as any canary. I don’t have to fly anything as well as a canary: gliding down from high places with arm control might be enough.

      Birdie has laid a new egg and we’re off on the second nest. I take it out the same as last time and put in a marble. She doesn’t sit too tightly on this first egg but she stays by the nest to protect it from the young birds. She gives off the feeling she’s finished with them and wishes they’d get out of the breeding cage. It’s a bit like some parents with teenagers. She puts up with them and she’ll feed them if they insist but her mind is elsewhere.

      In a few more days they’re all capable of flying up to any perch, or the nest, and are beginning to have fun trying out their wings. Birdie starts sitting tight on the nest as soon as she’s laid her third egg. I think she’s more afraid of the babies doing the eggs harm than anything else.

      All of the babies have started picking at the egg food when I put it in the bottom of the cage. The way they get started is by smearing it on themselves accidentally while jumping around Alfonso when he’s eating. They’re hopping in and out of the dish full of egg food and then, more by chance than anything, discover they can go directly to the source. This is a critical moment. I decide to leave the door of the breeding cage open and watch what happens.

      As soon as it’s open, of course, Alfonso takes off out into the aviary. He’s been locked in with those babies for five days and is showing signs of going stir crazy. He flies about madly, checking all his systems and giving the old wings a workout. It’s almost as much fun