Guest Post by Liese Hunter

On September 2nd, we lost our beloved Donovan and I want to (share a little bit) of his story.

Donovan first arrived at my home in July 2020. Jill McMurchy had spent much effort persuading his owner to surrender him to Palomacy, as he had been living outdoors in a dilapidated aviary for some 26 years, and I believe completely alone for the last nine. Alone outside for years. I lost my phone from that time, and I’m grateful that I no longer have the pictures of that aviary, although I’m sad to say that I have seen much worse.

Handsome and charming, Dono was adopted to a wonderful woman who wanted him as a companion for her elderly dove. I don’t know much about his time in his adoptive home other than they loved Donovan very much but in 2023 his owner developed HP, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, and to protect her health, all her birds needed to find new homes.

Of course, I welcomed Dono back into my flock of elderly and disabled doves. When he arrived, I was shocked at his appearance, his weight, and his general health. But at age 29, what do we expect and what is the goal? In general, the life expectancy of a domestic dove is 12-15 years. Twenty-nine years is not what we expect, and for all our friends and family, the most important thing is quality of life and comfort. After a couple of days of Dono not eating or pooping, I made the difficult decision to tube feed him. The decision was not made lightly, and I consulted with my dear friend and dove expert Ashley Dietrich every step of the way. Thankfully, Dono tolerated the tube feed, and after a couple of days, he started to perk up and take notice of his oddball flock: Stella Marie, Rory, Larry Bird, Scoop, Atom…then he began to interact with them. And then one morning, I tube fed him, and he looked me squarely in the eye (with his one sighted eye) and regurgitated the entire feed back onto the ground. I knew he was letting me know he didn’t want to be fed any more, but I wanted to be certain, so I tube fed him one last time that same evening and he did the exact same thing, and I promised him I would never ever tube feed him again.

I prepared for him to pass, but instead, he started to eat by himself. He started to interact more and more with his new flock. This elderly bird was blind in his right eye, could not fly, weighed about 110 grams, and despite being the frailest of birds, became the flock’s much loved and informal leader. Definitely not large, but very much in charge.

Every single day since then has been a bonus day with Donovan. You do not have a 29-year-old dove without being mentally prepared for him to pass at any time. But his life was full. He was too frail to be in the big daviary, but he loved being out in the sun, so I would take Dono and Stella out for supervised time in a small cage, now known as Moe’s, to be sure they had some sun time. I discovered that Donovan loved to perch on a rope, so I took a little holding cage and had it always available on the ground so that Dono could go in and perch when it was out-of-cage time. I noticed that all his friends would go in and hang out with him and started calling the little cage Moe’s. Donovan loved to take a little nap in Moe’s, then spend as much time as he could tolerate on the window ledge. Then he would go into Bill’s enclosure and eat all of Bill’s safflower, then he would do a little bit of wing flaps for exercise, then return to Moe’s for another nap. Repeat. I discovered recently that Dono loved millet sprays but NOT the brown ones, only the super fresh yellow ones, so I bought a huge bag from the feed store in Willow Glen and provided them to him every day. His auntie Adrienne Ruork got me hooked on bird cameras last year so I was able to check in on Donovan at any time, day or night, and honestly, those cameras gave me insight into more than I could have imagined.

The thing about being elderly and disabled is that it happens to all living beings who are lucky enough to become elderly. We accommodate these gifts of aging for ourselves- we wear glasses and hearing aids and use canes or hiking poles, and part of what I try to do to accommodate these gifts of aging for my foster birds, too. Mostly I determine what these birds want or need by watching them, communicating with other dove and pigeon caregivers and veterinarians and extrapolating from my experience with people. It’s not always easy to figure things out, but I want to believe that Donovan had an amazing extra year here with his flock. He had a very close relationship with Stella and went through a deep grieving process when she died. Afterwards, he developed a very close relationship with Larry Bird and then with Eleventy (Topaz). Larry Bird was beside Donovan all night long the night before he died, and I am forever amazed and moved by their staunch love for each other.

Donovan had whatever he wanted. He had a great sense of humor and he didn’t tolerate any nonsense from his peers. He was pretty blind near the end and would walk all over his friends and they never, ever corrected him. When he held court in Moe’s, literally all the birds would gravitate towards him. I would step into the bird room and all the birds would be jammed into tiny Moe’s to be with him. It was hilarious to see, and it was all due to the magic of Donovan who had amazing energy and magnetism that I can only partially understand as a human.

 

I knew that Dono was winding down on Sunday, and on Monday, some random things happened in the morning that delayed me starting my day. In fact, I was sitting in the bird room doing a dressing change when Donovan tumbled off his perch. He had been sitting there with Larry Bird, and he simply couldn’t hold himself up any longer. I had the greatest honor of holding him while he passed. I can’t think of a better way to go, and this is exactly what I want for my loved ones: a gentle passage after being at home with loved ones. I laid him out in Moe’s for his companions to process his death.

As terrible as it has been to break my knee and go through the surgery/recovery process, I like to think that the bright side was the time it allowed me to provide exceptional care for Donovan: getting him out in the sun, giving him lots of extra treats, and receiving his sassy response to his necessary care (lifting him in and out of his cage, pulling dingleberries off his bottom, and cleaning off the poo if Larry accidentally roosted above him at night) and honoring my promise to never tube feed him again. I loved this sweet old bird, and I was the luckiest person alive to be his forever home.

Donovan

1994 – September 2, 2024

We always want more time.

To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go. – Mary Oliver