Flying Blind Through Life: Unie's Story

[Pidgey]

I’d like to introduce you to a completely blind bird that flies on a regular basis. As far as we know, Unie’s story is unique in the world at this writing. When we embarked upon this adventure, we could find no other case of a blind bird that flew, never mind one that used sound to navigate. In this regard, Unie is a pioneer in the purest sense of the word. And when you truly consider the magnitude of her achievement with respect to her species, the height that she has gazed down from is very great indeed.

If Unie could hear and understand this story, she would wonder what all the fuss was about. I expect she’d be disturbed as to why we humans need such inspirational stories so much. Simply put, Unie isn’t some larger-than-life action hero, she just doesn’t know how to quit.

Most people having a brief occasion to watch Unie fly probably wouldn’t be especially impressed. But flying blind has its own inherent difficulties that make it different from being a blind human navigating around the house, yard or city. Air is a fluid medium that rarely sits still. It’s like the difference between swimming in a pool in the dark and swimming in a river in the dark—a river that can flow variously slow and easy or fast and dangerous.

It is funny how well most of us can see and yet, ironically, how blind we can be to the plights of others, how little we appreciate those that share this world, this life with us. It is in entangling our lives with others that we learn to love, in loving that we learn to give and in giving that we truly learn to live, for the vaunted “meaning of life” is ultimately what we will all make of it together.

Her name on the Hatch Certificate is E Pluribus Unum, Latin for “Out of the many--One.” Her mother, Winter, had an affair with a married cock. The first egg that she laid, she left in the middle of the floor. The second, she carefully placed off to the side and began sitting. I suppose that she wished that the father would bear his rightful share of the chick’s rearing, but it didn’t happen. If it hadn’t been early summer, I rather doubt that it would have worked. I never knew for certain which cock was actually the father but he’s one of two brothers.

The blessed event finally arrived and she began caring for the chick as a single parent. There was another family living not far away, the father of which had a mean disposition. When Unie was just a couple of days old, I came up to the loft and found her mother terribly upset because something had happened to her chick. I searched around and finally found her, upside down in the dust with holes punched all over her. Her crop was punctured and one of her toes was ripped off. She was cold and almost comatose.

The sane thing to do would have been to allow her to finish dying, wouldn’t it? Fortunately for her, I am not a sane man. I took her inside and cleaned her wounds under warm running water. The warmth brought her back to the land of the living at the same time that it washed the embedded filth from her broken body. Food leaked from the hole in her crop as the water flowed over the hole.

There was nothing for it but to keep her in a sterile environment so I put her in the Pigeonator (an incubator that I built with very fine temperature control) and only took her out to her mom for meals. Nestled in a clean towel, we settled into our routine. She got fed as many times a day as I could get her out there—usually four or five.

By keeping her crop wound dry, it slowly healed over the next week and a half. Every time that I got it wet to clean it, it would start leaking again. The other wounds on her body healed within a week for the most part. One of the holes was right on top of her head and I worried about her eye underneath.

At the proper time, her eyes began to open and within a few days both were open fully. They seemed fine and she could see just fine—she’d bob up and down, peeping with delight when I took her to her mother. Her mother and I had an understanding—I would herd her over to her nest and she would feed Unie while I sat near. When Unie fell over, I would right her as her mother patiently stood by. Her mother had accepted me as sharing the chick’s upbringing. She knew she wasn’t going to get any help anywhere else, I expect.

Within a week her left eye gained a slightly milky appearance. She started keeping it more and more closed, as well. And then her eyelids began to swell little by little. I began early on to treat it with Terramycin ointment but after a few days, it didn’t seem to be doing any good at all. She did get a brief exam by a vet but it was too early in its course for us to know what it was leading to.

After the swelling had gotten much worse, I got her a full appointment with the vet. When he forced her swollen eyelids apart to look at the eye, he almost swooned because the orb itself was greatly enlarged and completely white. There was nothing for it but to incise the eye and remove all the contents, leaving the remaining sclera to eventually collapse inward like a flower wilting. Those portions would be removed later, some by the vet and some by me.

Initially, the vet didn’t want to traumatize the optic nerve anymore than necessary because she still had vision in her remaining eye. Also, the eye is very close to the brain so it’s a delicate procedure.

I watched her real closely over the next few days and during the weekend, I didn’t think that she was going to make it. She didn’t respond to her mother for feeding and I didn’t want to tube-feed her at the time because she was so sick. She stood with both eyes closed and I could tell that she was in serious pain.

When the bad spell had passed she didn’t seem to respond to movement. She peeped in the obvious need for food so I took her out to her mother. But she couldn’t find her mother, even though she was sitting right in front of her. Few things in this life have ever broken my heart as that did. To have come so far and endured so much, and now this. It just wasn’t fair.

Birds are extremely visual creatures—their perception of the world around them is mostly through their eyes. Their communication with each other is primarily through gestures. They have a language but it is very limited in its scope as near as we can tell. They simply have very little ability to gain information through other senses and normally there wouldn’t be much reason for them to.

Imagine yourself as a blind bird. You have no hands with which to feel around and your mouth has all the feeling of a fingernail. Most sounds are pure gibberish---about all they provide is loudness and direction. You are cut off from communicating with your own community leaving you painfully alone. About all you can do is hear the other birds making their various grunts, coos and calls to the nest—a call to a nest that you cannot find from a mate that you can’t be sure is yours. Helen Keller had an easier time making meaningful contact than you will.

It’s worse. For us, personal locomotion is primarily by our legs. For birds, it’s actually with their wings. They use their legs only for short distances. That isn’t to say that their legs can’t do the job—pigeons can walk quite far with no trouble at all—it’s just not what they consider their primary means of going places. They WANT to fly “there” wherever “there” is. Up in the air, they are not free from predators, but they both feel and are safer than when they are on the ground. It’s natural for them. And, of course, their homes must be unreachable by the earthbound predators below as they have extremely limited means of protecting themselves.

There is no animal more cut off from its community than a blind flock bird. Bearing that in mind, how a blind bird can fly and why one would want to is the focus of this article.

(Continued)

[Pidgey]

Once we knew that she was blind, we just tried to finish her rearing. So, we tube-fed her and worked at trying to teach her how to eat on her own. As we had no prior experience and I couldn’t find anything on the internet at the time, we were truly flying blind here. I tried to imagine how a blind bird would find things like the food and water bowls so I toyed with the idea of designing little “pippers” to make a peeping sound so quiet that she would be the only one to hear them. I figured that I could put different ones with different tones around her box so that she could have a three-dimensional framework with which to navigate.

In the end, she got her own radio by her box and that’s done real well. She mostly listens to talk radio, but she also loves classical (it depends on the piece—she’s not overly fond of harpsichord music).

Whenever we were going to pick her up and take her anywhere, we would always say, “come on, sugar” as we touched her under her breast to let her know that our hands were there and it was time to step up. Somewhere along the way, I began to realize that I could say it without touching her and she would step up anyway. Her learned response to this suggestion was what gave me the first clue that she might be able to learn specific words.

One day, she started flapping her wings and flew out of her box. At that point, it became apparent that she wanted the exercise so I took her outside and started her flight training. I don’t remember when or quite how I got the initial idea but the rest is, as they say, history.

(I should note here that we have never done anything that Unie didn’t want to do. She gets excited when we ask her if she wants to go flying. It’s her choice to step up on our hands--we don’t force her. As a matter of fact, if you leave her in her nest box too long without flying her, she will launch off anyway and end up somewhere in the kitchen.)

As with the radio, I dreamed of “pippers” in the yard, but settled on making a noise myself for her orienting beacon. I started with a continuous sound from her launch point. So, we began with “go-go-go…, go-go-go…, go-go-go…, “ and kept it up until she touched down.

Now, the first flights weren’t anything to be proud of—she mostly just helicoptered straight down. It didn’t take long before our routine settled into its permanent pattern. I’d get her settled in my hand like a waiter holding a tray and then say, “Ready? One—Two—Three… go-go-go, go-go-go, go-go-go… .” She gets the actual toss on the “three”—just a smoothly accelerating thrust, usually.

Since we did it so much and so often, she actually picked that up pretty quick. She was flying forward and getting into it within days of the beginning. At first, though, she always flew with her feet extended out in front of her in a permanent landing posture and she never flew forward with any actual speed. Now, she retracts her feet a lot and doesn’t bother putting them down until she’s in landing mode.

I could tell that she sometimes knew she was getting close to landing and other times it was a bit of a surprise. Thus, I learned to gauge about when she was going to touch down (however gracefully or not) and preface it with a “land…, land…, land!” I try to time it so that her landing gear actually makes contact on the third “land!” If it’s going to be a leisurely landing, I try to space the words more slowly to indicate that. If it’s obviously coming up fast, I hurl them rapid fire. The tone and delivery also seem to help with her landing success.

It took awhile for her to understand what it means but it has, oddly enough, become quite useful in other ways. If she’s “drifting out to sea”, I can use it to arrest forward momentum and begin the landing sequence. This is very handy and quite remarkable. I’ve had people try to convince me that pigeons are not capable of “higher thought” or problem solving. Unie has proven to me that premise is pure BS--she deserves more respect for problem solving that a lot of people I have known.

Another helpful phrase that we use is “LOOK OUT!—LOOK OUT!—LOOK OUT!” It’s virtually always delivered with loudness and intensity. She’s definitely learned what that means and backpedals pretty hard when that one’s thrown out. Actually, that one comes quite natural so it wasn’t tough to learn to do on my part. It was much harder on hers because she had to run into a few things before it sank in what that meant.

Of course, it didn’t seem sensible at first to use English commands to a pigeon that didn’t even speak Pidgin English. But, what else could I do? Watching her blindly running into things wasn’t easy on my heart so I yelled. I just didn’t know when we began that she could learn what that meant.

Anymore, I usually conduct flight briefings before we commence flight operations. I hold her on my hand in the launch position up very near my face so that she can sense my closeness. We usually discuss wind conditions (light or strong, gusty or steady, the direction) and any other pertinent information. Of course, this is pure silliness on my part, but if you could see the expression of seriousness that Unie always seems to effect at this point, you would get a kick out of it just like I do. You will be more likely to perform this entire exercise more often if you enjoy it, too, instead of thinking of it as “walking the dog” or something that must be done.

I don’t know what trying to start with a bird that had become blind after having fully experienced sighted flying would be like. My guess is that habits would have to be broken but it’s hard to say. If I had to do that, I’d work inside an empty room or a garage and would begin with all the commands at once. You might have to add one to indicate that the bird was going to bump into the ceiling.

(Continued)

[Pidgey]

When Unie and I have to work inside due to inclement weather, I talk quieter because the sound bounces off the walls as well. She always knows and compensates by containing her wanderings to a tighter area. I have theorized that she can hear the sound reflecting off the wall and she knows to reverse from the reflection but I don’t know for sure. She never bumps into a wall though so whatever it is, she’s good at it.

In starting out teaching a blind bird to fly you have to accept that the only way to learn is to fail. This means crashing. All you can do is attempt to minimize what the effect of that crash is going to be. Leafy vegetation (like soft shrubs) is good. A training place that is surrounded by dense shrubbery without thorns would be ideal. Even a tennis court wouldn’t be too bad.

Winds are funny. They can be nonexistent, smooth, strong, turbulent, choppy, etc. I have noticed that when the winds are the choppiest, it affects Unie a lot. She begins to overcompensate and forms habits of doing so. I sometimes have to take her into the garage to work if the air is too rough to help her relax again. Of course, she loves the thrill of the wild ride, but too much of it begins to instill bad habits.

Sometimes, it’s better to fly with the wind and other times it’s best to fly into the wind. The faster the wind is blowing, the more you need to launch with it instead of against it. In any case, you don’t want to fly in any significant wind---you either wait for the slow moments or you go to a sheltered place to fly.

Hawks and cats are still a danger. I never let Unie get too far away and try to limit how high she gets by using the voice commands to get her to land if she goes too high. I have always had the fear that one of those Cooper’s hawks might come around and pluck her out of midair. I try to work most of her flying in when they’re not around (early morning, and later evening). And I try to keep her lower when I fly her during the day.

Once, a black cat was secretly waiting in the shadows while we were flying one night. After several landings, Unie came down to land not 10 feet in front of me when the cat darted out of the shadows straight for her. I have ever been wary of such a thing so I don’t let my guard down—when she’s not on my hand my eyes are locked on her. You have to also use your peripheral vision a lot. Anyhow, I yelled a fierce scream and ran at the cat. It had been going straight for Unie but veered not a foot to the right when it both heard and saw that I was gunning for it. It passed by without ever slowing up but my heart kept pounding for a long time afterward. I’m more careful than ever now.

Whenever she has a really good flight, I cuddle her to my face and make a soft, trilling “OoOoOoOoOhhhhh, Boooyyy!” sound over and over. I’ve got my lips almost right up to her ear. She always preens my beard tenderly. Most other times she won’t let you do that without biting, but I think she appreciates it then. I get the sense that she doesn’t like being smothered with love, but once in awhile it’s a very welcome thing.

The dictionary defines the word “volition” as “the act of exercising the will.” For a blind bird, eating and drinking are about the only things they do of their own volition. But, when Unie’s flying--she’s in control. Yes, she’s bitten some dust before, but she’s also had some pretty fantastic flights, considering. Believe me, she WANTS to do it. I never slip the key in the door when I’m coming home that her head doesn’t perk up in anticipation of going outside to fly even when she’s obviously been taking a leisurely nap in her food bowl. Whenever I put out my hand and say, “come on, sugar—you wanna’ go flyin’?” she never hesitates. It IS what she lives for--there is no doubt.

If Unie could have a favorite quote, I am sure that it would be one from Theodore Roosevelt:


"In the battle of life, it is not the critic who counts; nor the one who points out how the strong person stumbled, or where the doer of a deed could have done better.”

“The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who does actually strive to do deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotion, spends oneself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at worst, if he or she fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those timid spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."


Neither Unie nor I know what tomorrow will bring. I know that if something bad happens to her, I will be heartbroken. But not as bad as if that first day—that day when she helplessly squeaked in unseeing hunger for the mother who rejected her then for her blindness—if that day, if that condition of helpless dependence, had never ended.

Yes, she is dependent upon us to help her fly. In that regard, we are a team--and yet so much more! For as she flies, our own earthbound feet become as light as the mystical Ether, and we fly with her in spirit. We are her eyes, and she, our wings. We are our own little flock, you see.

This is Unie's home at Christmas:

http://pets.webshots.com/photo/13933...73664377pvBgAB

And this is Unie flying:

http://pets.webshots.com/photo/13933...73664377QTWOSt

This thread covers her further adventures:

http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/showthread.php?t=10917

Pidgey

[Lin Hansen]

Pidgey,

What a beautiful, well written, inspiring story. Unie is so lucky to have you and I know that you feel lucky as well, to have Unie in your life.

Just beautiful....and thank you for sharing Unie's story with us.

Linda

[TAWhatley]

Thank you Pidgey and Unie for this most wonderful and inspiring story. Totally awesome!

Terry

[Pigeonpal2002]

Hi Pidgey,

This is a very heartwarming and miraculous story of Unie and how she's adapted to life as a blind pigeon. Your accounts of her life from birth until now is a real life roller coaster ride for both you and her. Wonderful story, thanks so much for sharing this with us all !!!

[pdpbison]

...it can get no better...!

Wow...

Way to go Pidgey...!

And way to go Unie...!

Phil
Las Vegas

[Trees Gray]

Pidgey,

Too cool,...brought tears to my eyes.

As you can see, I made it a sticky....

Treesa

[Birdmom4ever]

What an amazing, heartwarming and wonderful story. Pigeons continually amaze me and so do those who take the time to get to know them and love them.

[mistenle]

You are so lucky to have each other. Thank you for sharing your story.

[Pidgey]

All,

Thank you, yes, we are very lucky to have Unie. Mind you, I could wish for her sake that all that had never happened to her but there's certainly no point in wasting time doing that as we can't go back in time and change anything.

But, we've all certainly learned a lot about life because of her and more every day. I am happy that you all understand seeing as how she's only a pigeon! The vet said a curious thing so long ago when we were fighting so hard to save her. I can't remember it word for word but it was something like "this is one of those things where you can't keep yourself from doing it, but you don't want your mother to find out!"

It was a few months later when I told him about her flying and other activities (she loves going on walks around the neighborhood and out in the loft). He told me then that he had been so scared that she would end up standing in a corner "afraid of life" and was genuinely relieved that she had adjusted so well.

You have to know that his veterinarian clinic is Forest Trails of Tulsa (or Bixby), Oklahoma. He, Dr. Paul Welch, cut his teeth under Pearl Hunnicutt who was a famous rehabber around these parts back when virtually NOBODY did that. He's currently the president of the Association of Avian Veterinarians (www.aav.org) and is still active in rehabbing. He's a compassionate man and it's easy to tell he's decent because he's got a picture of UNIE AT CHRISTMAS (he gets a card every year) posted above his desk!

Pidgey

[melissasue1968]

What a wonderful story Pidgey! You should send it to Disney to be made into a movie!
Melissa

[melissasue1968]

Treesa,
I'm new 'round here. What's a sticky?
Melissa

[Poulette]

This is such a love story Pidgey! You and Unie see each other in St-Exupery's way. "(It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; What is essential is invisible to the eye.)" -The Little Prince

So touching!

Suz.

[mr squeaks]

I agree with Melissasue - I think Unie's story would make a great pigeon movie! Have you tried to get your story published in any magazine? Many people could have a much better appreciation of pigeons!

Keep us updated on Unie and her adventures!