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The worst part of preparing to take flight
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What’s your most dreaded part of preparing for a trip?
Searching for a bargain fare to Osaka or Omaha? Squashing your must-takes into a miniscule bag to avoid checking it?
My most dreaded prep is giving my adopted bird a bath. My white dove, Nureyev, simply will not bathe himself, so I have to do it.
Why, you may ask? “Maybe I’m too demanding,” as Prince warbled in “When Doves Cry” from his film “Purple Rain”. Prince’s music video of “When Doves Cry” begins and ends with him in a bath tub. The doves that fly in Prince’s video are pristine white.
More to the point, I can’t leave a dirty bird for my friends to take care of while I’m gone. No foul fowl for us.
And surely when Emily Dickinson wrote her famed line "'Hope' is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul...", her metaphor was for clean feathers.
The safest, easiest way to cleanse Nureyev is to take him into the shower with me when I wash my hair, and suds up both of us.
I was heartened to see an Animal Planet show that said birds like to shower with their human companions. I viewed the recent “Faithful Friends” segment, fittingly, while staying at Memphis’ Peabody Hotel, famed for its twice-daily march of ducks through the elegant lobby.
These North American mallard ducks, like most birds, bathe themselves. They dip and indeed duck in the water of the lobby’s Travertine marble fountain.
So before I left for Memphis, I bathed Nureyev as usual with a “white violet” type of shampoo. It highlights the white in my salt and pepper hair, and brightens his feathers more than does Dove detergent, my vet’s recommendation.
With my left hand, I hold Nureyev close to me so he won’t try to fly when wet feathers weigh down his wings. With my right hand, I slather him with suds I’ve slicked off my hair, the second soaping, of course. Occasionally, he nips me with his beak, turning me violet in tender places.
Then, under the gentlest flow my shower can spurt, I rinse him. “Faux rain,” I assure him, but he nips anew. I gently lift one of his wings, then the other under the water. He blinks his ruby red eyes. Occasionally his feathers retain a slight hue of lightest lavender.
To dry Nur, I dab him with my softest wash cloths, and let him perch on the bathroom vanity top while I dart back into the shower to quickly rinse my hair. He looks like a (non-)flying rat, as tourists call the pigeons in Venice’s St. Marks Square.
Next, I blow him dry. Why, you may ask? Ever noticed how long it takes your down parka to dry? And how incredibly heavy it is? It would be dangerous for him to try to fly while wet. Also, birds can get chilled very quickly.
So I use the blow dryer, which I don’t bother with for my own hair. When one lover termed my tresses "Bride of Frankenstein hair", I dropped the guy instead of picking up my blow drier.
For Nureyev, I always put the hair dryer on medium heat, and constantly test the hot air on my wrist to be sure it’s not too hot and the air flow isn’t too strong.
He perches on my index finger, and I hold him up to the heat lamp. When my arm gets tired, I put him on my head and stand beneath the light. He stretches his wings and his tail feathers to absorb the warmth. Once, like Icarus in Greek mythology, Nureyev got a bit too close to the faux sun, and steam started rising from his damp feathers. I lowered him immediately, and he was fine.
Drying him takes about three hours. Clean, he no longer pecks his feathers as if he has obsessive-compulsive disorder. Regardless of his renewed comfort after the ordeal, he gives me the silent treatment instead of his usual perpetual cooing. He won’t coo again for almost a day. I rationalize that it saves him one day of being a lonesome dove while I’m gone.
I, however, miss him whenever I’m away. He is, as Thomas Jefferson described his pet mockingbirds, the “delight of every hour.”
As soon as Nureyev sees me when I return from a trip, he coos a welcome, and does his mating dance. I open his multi-spired mahogany and wire bird mansion, and he flies to my shoulder.
"The whir of a pigeon's wings," wrote Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, "...the flutter of a fresh soul discarding the exhausted heart."
More About:
travel ·
pets ·
doves ·
Animal Planet ·
The Peabody Hotel ·
Memphis ·
Nureyev ·
Prince ·
When Doves Cry ·
Purple Rain ·
Pigeons ·
Venice ·
Emily Dickinson ·
Derek Walcott ·
Tennessee
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