Saturday, September 24, 2011

Willy Wag Tails

On my first blog I alluded to a story regarding some "Willy Wag Tail's" ... and by popular demand (and a lot of searching through old files and papers by my Mum & Dad) here it is! I hope you enjoy reading one of my earliest claims to fame ;-)

My mum, and a very young me (This must have been around 1979) are pictured here hand rearing one of the 'six' Willy Wag Tails we rescued and fostered.

Here's the story that The Evening Gazette ran along side the picture (on page 3 of all places!)

The names have been changed/removed to protect the innocent ... I didnt need to change mine, they spelt it wrong anyway!

'Bye Bye Birdie, all the way from Wales by lorry'

A SURPRISE package that fell off the back of a lorry has put an Teesside family in a bit of a flap. For the package was a nest full of hungry Welsh wagtail chicks. The birds had traveled all the way from North Wales because there mother build her home in a load of polythene which was loaded on to a lorry and transported to the firms base in Stockton.

The nest fell off the lorry as the load was being taken off. A member of staff adopted the orphan family and took them home.

His wife pictured here with her son Stephen, seven, has been feeding the chicks with a pair of tweezers.

"We have discovered what to feed them on through trial and error, but they are partial to insects, maggots and worms which we have to drop in their beaks," she said

Stephen and his sister, have been helping with their demanding house guests.

As soon as the chicks can flap their wings, it will be bye-bye birdie.

I can remember it like it was almost yesterday, not bad considering it was over 32 years ago! the experience has stayed with me throughout my life.
At that point in my life we had not yet had pets in our family home, so the addition (all be it brief) with animals, unusual ones at that, was very exciting.
I can recall coming home from primary school and walking around the garden with my wellies on watering the lawn .. re-creating 'rain' to get worms to pop their heads out (then subsequently sticking them in a tupaware box for the Wag Tails to have for tea)
Family friends used to occasionally turn up with boxes full of warm, wriggly maggots :-)

I cant quite remember if we ever named them ... however I can vividly remember the day we had to set them free ... It was the first time I had ever become emotionally attached to an animal (but hadnt realised it at the time) something I would experience again and again later in life.

I'm not sure how long we had them for, seemed like ages however in reality was possibly only a few weeks. Then one foggy Sunday afternoon we headed down to a woodland area in Norton to let them go ... they were old enough now to flap their wings and go off into the big bad world.
Most of them happily flew off quickly, apart from the one I had hold of! ... he just wanted to sit on my finger (at this point they were quite happy being handled)
He just sat there and, no matter how much I waved my arm up and down, he refused to fly off

Eventually of course he did, he flew off to join his friends in the trees they had made a bee line for ... I can remember waving bye bye with a tear in my eye as they circled around and around. To me they were waving back and saying thank you

For years of course afterwards, I often wondered when I saw a wagtail (or any small bird lol) if it was one of 'ours' ... at such a young age I think I probably wondered that for a long long time past the average lifespan of a bird to be honest lol
I've never forgot about my brief encounter with the Willy Wag Tails, I think my love of animals was born from the whole experience
Regards
Steven

Dont forget you can join my facebook page at www.facebook.com/reposephotographic or visit my website at http://www.reposephotographics.com/ ... you can even subscribe to future blogs by entering your email address in the box at the right :-)