A Brief Tour of Winged Hearts

Submitted by Gitie on 18 October, 2007 - 12:30

Welcome to Winged Hearts - our site dedicated to increasing human understanding of bird culture.

Before I met Maggie the magpie, I used to think a bird was just a bird.  Not so!  Maggie and his friends have transformed our understanding of bird culture and their social, emotional and loving natures.  They have changed our ordinary backyard into an arena of fun and joy where birds of different species interact, share, play and most of all show us how their spirits have never been devoid of feelings, the ability to appreciate, love and respond with care.  

Creating this site has been an absolutely wonderful experience.  Ron and I have had a ball, sifting through hundreds (rather thousands) of photographs, remembering the earlier events as we flipped through years of daily logs that we have kept about the lives of our birds, trying to select the ones to put on the site.  We finally came to the conclusion that it would take over a year to convert all the pre-digital information into the necessary format.  So we had to narrow down the selection considerably to get started and we will progressively release more slideshows, stories, audios and videos as we convert them for the older stories. There is so little we really know about their beautiful natures and the birds show us new things all the time.  Barely a week goes by without us making another amazing discovery about them.  We will be keeping our readers posted on the blogs with the latest developments.

Visitors to the site can browse through slideshows and articles in seven galleries:

Meeting Maggie   -   Read about Maggie's special friendshsip with our dogs and see some glimpses from his interesting life.

Birds I View    -   Meet 16 species that visit our backyard and get an insight into their personalities.  (Over 16 more are in the pipeline.)

Feathery Tales   -   Bring you short stories about the how we have seen the different species interact with each other.

Grounded!  -   Tells you about the animals that share the same territory as the birds.

Not Just A Bird...   -   Shares insights into the loving, caring and socially intricate lives of the birds based on our daily observations of incidents in their lives.

The Sticky Beak   -   A kaleidoscope of cute and funny anecdotes as the birds hop about their daily business.

Winged Tips   -   Tips, techniques and commentaries on bird behaviour and developing friendships with them.

There's tons more information that we will keep adding to the site.  To keep readers updated and also give them opportunity to share their stories and comments we have also created Wild Bird Talking  e-zine.  This is a free opt-in newsletter.  (No one likes spam, and subscribers names will never be rented, disclosed or traded.)  We value readers' time immensely and intended to keep the e-zine as a bi-monthly publication that will be delivered to subscriber's via e-mail.  Readers can share their stories in Wild Bird Talking and also read articles from experts, and stories from celebrity guests.  The e-zine will also inform you of the latest additions to the galleries.

We hope you enjoy the birds' stories and find them as delightful as we do and we look forward to receiving your comments on the blogs or drop us a line via e-mail.

Happy viewing,

With warm wishes

Gitie

 

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Comments

Submitted by Karen on 21 October, 2007 - 11:02.

As a young teenager I made friends with magpies who were very happy for me to be near their chicks and even pick them up and pat them. In recent years a magpie family has befriended us and they visit us on our verandah from time to time.

Submitted by gail mcmeekin on 9 November, 2007 - 21:12.

Hello Gitie I am enjoying your interview on Conscious Animal Radio. Very interesting stories. I wouldlove to be able to fly and enjoy the views from high above

Nice hearing your voice again
Alan

Submitted by Gitie on 10 November, 2007 - 22:18.

Hello Alan,

Thanks for the comments.  It's very encouraging to know that readers and listeners are enjoying these stories.  I have a story about a kookaburra , which I will post in a blog shortly and another one about a koel which I will include in the next post.  Hope you like these too.

Cheers

Gitie

Submitted by alandoland (not verified) on 21 May, 2010 - 16:12.

In this series, we look at each of the five major aspects of communicating with wild birds. These involve making them familiar with our speech patterns, listening to learn, understanding our bird's response, building trust, and ccie allowing the friendship to develop. In the previous issue we covered the importance of making the wild birds feel comfortable in your presence, showing them that you care about their welfare and wish to make friends.