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ISSN 1492-8132
Issue 152, © 2006
No reprints without permission
Canary Video
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Robirda's new video on basic canary handling, The Canary Whisperer, is available in zone-free DVD, or on VHS. It's over 50 minutes long, and full of valuable information and handling tips for anyone new to keeping canaries, or nervous about safely catching, holding, and handling their pet or breeder canaries.
Both the DVD and VHS versions are proving to be very popular with many of our customers. A recent email stated, "I've watched your DVD a couple of times now, I think it's great!" Another note told us, "I received the dvd...wow, it was excellent! I loved the part about checking the health of a canary... Hats off to you, you are really a canary whisperer!"
Please click here for more info.
Sponsor's Space
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The folks at Bird & Cage provide bird keepers with a selection of great quality birdcages and accessories for very good prices, along with some of the best customer service you will find anywhere. A recent customer says,"Thank you for delivering my two cages so quickly. I've ordered avian products from other suppliers online and have never experienced such good service as with your company."
Parrot owners will want to check our the NEWstainless steel parrot cages, built to last a lifetime, gorgeous, and super easy to clean. Smaller bird owners will appreciate the wide selection of flight, pet, and breeder cages, including a wrought-iron small flight cage that may just be the best small pet bird cage you'll ever see!
You can save 20% in the Sidewalk Sale of overstocked cages. On the rest of the site you will find breeding cages, cage accessories, stands, and some of the best flight cages anywhere. There's even free shipping if you live in the continental US! BirdandCage.com.
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"I love your website, your information has made me a very well-informed canary friend/owner. Thank you."
"Thank you for your love of birds and your commitment for helping those of us who are learning to share our lives with our feathered friends!"
"Thank you so much for the book on canaries. That is a really nice book. I needed one, because I bought my Mom two canaries, a male and a female, we don't know anything about them. I'm so glad to have this book, I couldn't believe how much was in there. Thank you so much!"
"Hi Robirda! Thanks for your thoughts. My little one is singing as loudly as ever. He looks much better today. Your advice was most welcome; I'm particularly grateful about the recipes! I sent you the same amount the vet charged me; you have done no less than he did. You are a real blessing to all of us canary lovers the world over."
"I ordered 'Canary Tales' by Linda Hogan last year...Although I fully recommend buying the book, I find Robirda's book much more complete, easier to read with less difficulty finding information."
Welcome to Robirda's Companion Bird eZine
For breeder or pet bird owners who care.
Website News
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We've had so many emails from people who enjoyed looking at the entire series of photos in our recent Flock Talk photo contest, that we've decided to put out a calendar featuring many of those self-same photos. We're still in the earlier stages, but hope to be able to offer you a lovely and useful bird calendar by the end of the month.
Each calendar will of course include the same handy lighting schedule featured in last year's calendar, which so many of you have written in about, to let us know it has proven handy. We hope our newest calendar will prove to be equally as useful and enjoyable to all of our readers! To offer us some feedback on what you'd like to see included (or not) in this upcoming calendar, please feel free to
Feature Article
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Here's the second half of our article on greens you can easily grow or find to offer your birds, or to enhance your own diet. Don't forget to click on the link at the end, to see photos of many of these delicious and oh-so-edible vegetable foods!
by R C McDonald
www.robirda.com
Copyright © Aug 2006
Kale; Curly, Ornamental, Peacock, Russian;
Kale is, quite simply, the single most nutritious vegetable on the planet. It is very cold-hardy, and in most areas is very resistent to pests and diseases, and it will usually grow well even in rather poor soil. It will winter over quite easily in most areas, with minimal protection, although most kales will bolt to seed as soon as the weather gets hot. Peacock kale is the exception, and will resist bolting even in the hottest weather, until fully adult.
Curly kale and various colours of ornamental kale are the most commonly seen, although peacock kale or the taller russian kale will show up occasionally, or surface in some mesclun seed mixes. All kales are edible, no matter what their colour or shape, and all have similarly high nutrient content. Most kales tend to be fairly bitter in warmer weather, but will become quite sweet and tasty if left to be touched by the first frost.
Peacock kale produces a much larger plant than the smaller, more common curly kale. It has larger, flatter leaves, sometimes with some frilling at the edges. It's a beautiful plant, with the dark green leaves blushed with rose tones down their veins, and their distinctive bluish 'bloom' (which can be washed off by rain or sprinkling). This kale is also quite mild in flavour, even during the summer, lacking the harshness of taste found in most summer kales. It does well lightly picked throughout the growing season, making it a perfect home gardener's plant.
Lamb's Quarters or Wild Amaranth;
Lamb's Quarters has beautiful, almost silvery-blue foliage that looks as if it has been lightly dusted, but this lovely plant is often dismissed as a mere weed. It is actually an important source of food and cover to many kinds of insects and birds. Both the foliage and seeds are palatable to humans, while the seeds are an important food source for many of the smaller species of songbirds.
The young leaves and stems can be added to salads (the taste is rather bland, and blends well with other greens, wild or domestic), or they can be lightly steamed as a potherb. Similar to its close relative, Amaranth, the seeds are very high in protein. Some tribes of Amerindians reportedly ground the seeds into flour, while others added them whole into a pemmican (or trail food) mixture.
The flowers are tiny, and resemble seedpods more than flowers. Canaries enjoy eating the leaves and stems of this plant at all stages of growth, and particularly enjoy this plant during any stage of flowering; whether chowing down on the tiny flowers or picking out the even tinier seeds, not minding if they're fully ripened or not.
Marigolds;
There are two unrelated plants eated as marigolds; the first is not actually a marigold at all, but a calendula, sometimes called 'Pot Marigold'. My canaries love the leaves and flowers of this plant, which has hundreds of years of culinary history. The petals make a wonderful healing wash for dry or damaged skin, and also work well in cooked and fresh dishes, with flavors ranging from spicy to bitter, tangy to peppery. The sharp taste of the flower petals resembles saffron, giving rise to it's other common name of 'Poor Man’s Saffron'.
The pretty petals in hues of golden-orange will help to enhance yellow in canary feathers, while the yellow or orange petals will color and flavor most foods when chopped and sautéed with them (cooking brings out the colour). Most birds enjoy the greens or flowers equally well, while humans eat the greens in salad mixes, or sprinkle the flower petals on soups, pasta or rice dishes, herb butters, and salads, or use them to add a yellow tint to soups, spreads, and scrambled eggs.
Gem Marigolds (Tagetes tenuifolia): 'Lemon Gem' and 'Tangerine Gem' Marigolds are the best-tasting of the edible 'true' marigolds. All marigolds are technically edible, but most are very bitter, and some can carry toxic levels of oxalic acids.
Gem Marigolds are also known as 'dwarf marigolds' or 'signet marigolds'. They have a spicy, herbal flavor ranging from tangy to bitter, depending on the soil and growing conditions. As the common names suggest, they often have a citrus flavor, even though you won't smell a citrus scent. Most of my canaries enjoy these flowers, but I pull off the petals and break off and remove the bitter portion that comes to a right angle, when eating them myself.
If you want to preserve calendula or gem marigolds for the winter, the petals can be dried. Try adding them to nestling foods, or use them yourself in egg dishes such as quiche, scrambled eggs, omelette, or deviled eggs. They're also good in mayonnaise salads such as egg, potato, or chicken, or added to breads and muffins.
Mustard;
'Brassica juncea' or mustard greens are, as the name implies, the leaves of the plant which produces mustard seeds. It's also known as gai choy, Indian or Japanese mustard, or California pepper grass; the leaves can be flat, crumpled or lacy-edged.
One of the most pungent and interesting of all the greens, as well as a very generous source of vitamin A, mustard greens are widely used in French, Chinese and Southern U.S. cuisines. True to style, most canaries enjoy these greens greatly and will eat fairly good sized quantities, given the opportunity.
For human cooking, try mustard greens sauteed with chopped bacon and red potatoes, or simply stir fried in olive oil with a minced garlic clove. Be sure not to over-cook them, and never add water; you'll leach away all the flavour and too many of the nutrients. Mustard greens are more heat-tolerant than some of the more delicate greens, but do best as a cool season crop. If you're growing them yourself, be sure to rotate them between peas and wheat crops to help prevent root rot.
Nasturtiums;
Colorful, edible, butterfly-like nasturtium blossoms have been considered a vegetable, an herb, a flower, and even a fruit, at different times of their history! Renaissance botanists named it after watercress, ('Nasturtium officinale' in Latin), which tastes similar. The nasturtiums we grow today descend mainly from 2 species native to Peru. According to Jesuit missionaries, the Incas used nasturtiums as a salad vegetable and as a medicinal herb. Spanish and Dutch herbalists shared seeds willingly, and the pretty, fragrant and easy-to-grow plants quickly became widespread through Europe.
Leaves were eaten in salads; unripe seeds and flower buds were pickled and served as a substitute for capers. Flowers were used in nosegays, and planted to adorn trellises or stone walls. The flowers and long-lasting leaves were popular in Victorian bouquets and table arrangements. Nasturtiums were known to help prevent scurvy, since the leaves are rich in Vitamin C.
Keeping the plants well watered helps moderate the spiciness of the leaves and flowers, but however spicy they get, my canaries always seem to enjoy them. I've found they add a refreshing bite to a potato salad, and pair well with seafood. A handful of the bright colored flower petals are delicious chopped into a shrimp or crab salad sandwich filling, and the whole flowers and leaves make a great garnish for a platter of grilled salmon or birthday cakes; press the flowers on just before serving so that they look enticing and fresh. Or, use the petals to decorate any savory open-faced sandwiches.
However you use them, spicy-sweet nasturtium flowers are a wonderful way to introduce edible flowers into any diet, whether for your birds, yourself, or the rest of your family!
Seedpods (green or ripe);
If you're growing your own greens for yourself and your birds, you have another option for use besides just harvesting the leaves or flowers - why not allow them to go to seed, and feed those to your birds too? Many edible plants set seed that is greatly enjoyed by canaries and other species; besides offering a tasty treat for your birds, the flowers will help to attract butterflies and beneficial insects to your garden.
Many plants will easily self-sow, and save you the effort of collecting, saving, and drying the seeds - as long as you don't mind allowing them to choose their own place to grow, you could end up harvesting food year after year with minimal effort.
Canaries and other members of the finch family will enjoy seeds in the green, or 'milk' stage, as well as when ripe. Some useful seed-producing plants for this purpose are lettuce, carrots, dandelions, shepherd's purse, teazel, caraway, canola, millets of all kinds, canary grass, and most of the cabbage and mustard plants.
Most of these plants are annuals, meaning they will grow from seed and flower in the same year, but carrots are biannual, growing their root in the first year, and flowering the second.
But it's easy to get carrot-flowers; simply look for a carrot that still has it's greens attached, then cut the top inch off the root (keeping the greens), and replant it in your garden or in a pot on your balcony. Keep it well-watered and in a fairly bright location, and it should flower for you, producing tall stalks with large, multi-flowered heads closely resembling dillweed, except that the flower are white instead of yellow.
Squash Blossoms and Tips;
All squash flowers are edible, not just zucchini. The squash blossom was one of the first edible flowers to become relatively common in the US, thanks to the popularity of Mexican and Italian foods. The young tips of the vines are edible too, and are excellent chopped and quickly stir-fried. Of course, my canaries adore the blooms, pollen and all, as well as the tips!
Mexicans eat the delicately flavored squash blossoms in quesadillas and in an elegant soup called 'sopa de flor de calabaza', which translates as 'pumpkin blossom soup'. In Italy, the fragile orange-yellow zucchini blossoms (fiori di zucca) are fried in beer batter after being stuffed with soft cheese.
Squash blossoms can be grilled, poached, steamed or eaten raw in salads. Or brush them with a little olive oil, pop them in the toaster oven, and spread a little goat cheese on them when they're wilted and hot. They are extremely perishable and will only last about a day.
* * * See photos of most of these plants at robirda.com/greens/
by R C McDonald
www.robirda.com
Copyright © Aug 2006
Song CD
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Do you like to keep your canaries singing? Help encourage your canaries to sing more with our CD, featuring Robirda's canaries in full song. Or, use it to help call more wild birds to your feeders, or to help make your pet parrots more comfortable.
You'll get 12 16-bit true-stereo tracks, each averaging almost 5 minutes long, for a total of over 58 minutes of canary songs with no distracting background music. We've even posted a short sample for you to listen to!
We get a great deal of positive comments from happy customers, so we're sure you'll be pleased. A recent customer tells us:
"My 'baby' Jingles and I are both thrilled with your CD! It arrived within days of my purchase and it's the best CD out there! I have purchased every CD available, and yours was the only one my canary responded to. He was in subsong before, but is singing his little heart out now! The CD has attracted the wild birds outside his little garden sanctuary, so my canary has lots of vocal competition now, which makes him sing even more."
To find out more about our Canary Song CD, click here.
Help Needed
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Do you know of a great bird site which deserves a review? Maybe you have a favourite tip or trick that you like to use, or know of a product that has made your bird's life better or easier to manage in some way? Why not share them with other Flock readers? Just send an email here.
For You & Your Birds, With Love
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Our next issue is due Monday, Aug 28th. We hope you and your birds stay safe, well and happy in the meantime, and we look forward to seeing you all then!
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