Num-num leaves the nest

Num-num update, original story here.

Since taking Num-num in several days ago, he has got stronger, started to open his eyes more and has gotten a whole lot more flappier! When we first got him he could hardly walk, and that's why the cat could so easily get him and his sibling.

For the first two nights Num-num was unable to escape his blue bucket nest and didn't really try. His parents were coming frequently to feed him, so I left the rearing up to them.

On the third day, Num-num was much stronger than before and was jumping and flapping his wings to get out. I was worried he would get out and fall off the balcony...and get eaten by the cat. With much effort Num-num made it up to the ledge of his blue nest. I was hesitant to see what to do, but he just sat there chilling out, and doing some strange bopping movements with wing stretching.

I watched with nervous fascination about what was going to happen.

And then his dad came along and had a chat with him.

And he just sat there. Great, I thought, this is what would happen in the wild. Hopefully the parents tell him to stay put and he won't hurt himself. The parents both came and fed him on his ledge, and seemingly had more chats with him.

I was feeling more relaxed and was reading myself to full pass all rearing duties back to the parents. Nightfall approached, a time when the parents stop coming to see Num-num, and also the time the cat usually comes to make his last prowl of our Hof.

So what does Num-num do? he make a run for it. He jumps off his blue ledge and straight to the edge of the balcony. Despite thinking I'd let what happens happen, I wasn't going to let him go off on his own in the dark! I went to retrieve him off his perilous ledge, pulling him back from the brink a couple of times with a grilling rack that for some reason we leave in our pfand bucket. I'd get him off the ledge and then he'd just run back again, and the third time...thwap, he fell off and down below. NUM-NUM!!!

I ran downstairs and found hum chilling out in the garden. His parents nowhere to be seen or heard, it was no place for our little bird. I picked him up and took him back to his blue safe zone. One more night, I said to myself...just one more night and he'll be ready. I knew it was inevitable that he would make another break for it and perhaps he was ready and should do whatever Blackbirds do. Just not at night please!

Back in his box he kept trying to get out again, getting back out on the blue ledge once more. His squeaks were heard by his dad and when daddy came with a worm, it looked like he tried to knock Num-num back inside his box. Eventually Num-num fell back in and decided to go to sleep.

I was happy to find Num-num still in his box sleeping before I went to work. The Mrs. was at home to keep an eye on him.

Sometime before lunch, he got back out again, went to the ledge, and like Buzz Lightyear, fell with style, diagonally with fledgling flights skills, crash landing in the soft vines of our central gardened area. He then made a run across the paving and into a small shrubbed and vined area where we presumed his parents were setting up shop.

When I came home, already aware of his escape, I could hear him in the Hof but not see him. In the night and the next morning we could hear him and his parents chatting. So he had survived his first night out in 'the wild'!

Today when we came back from an outing we could hear him again. We looked around and he was just chilling out in the shrub thing that he'd run to (and that we've been seeing his parents fly in and out of often). He looks pretty happy and safe. He wasn't fussed when I crept inside the bush to say hi.

And so now our fostering days are over, and our happy little Blackbird is back where he should be, and hopefully out of danger. It's nice to know that he will still be near us and living in our Hof with his parents. Hopefully his sibling, the one that was taken by the next door neighbour, will also survive.

And, I can keep an eye on him from the area where I usually work on the computer, which directly overlooks the Blackbirds home.

Hopefully he'll come and visit us sometime when he can fly better :)

Blackbird B&B

We are now the temporary co-custodians of a baby Blackbird, who we have decided is a 'he' and have called him Num-num.

It all started around Friday lunchtime. I was sitting at the computer with a view into our Hof (courtyard), watching the usual comings and goings of people. This time something was noticeably different, with the people stopping to look at something on the ground, lingering for a while and then eventually leaving. It looked like they were looking at a small black ball. It was only when the ball started to try to hop that I realised it was a bird. Nobody did anything however.

We went out for the day not long after and the small bird had disappeared, to safety I had hoped.

When we came back home in the afternoon there was a bit of chirping from birds in the Hof, which is normal I thought. But from inside we could hear the insistent chirping of two birds and when you listened closely, it was easy to tell it was a cry for help.

I went to investigate, deducing it must be something to do with the baby bird from earlier. It was nowhere to be seen so I followed the bird alarm. The two birds were in our rear-most Hof and chirping with frantic alarm. I then noticed over the fence that a cat was playing with something, and even though I couldn't see through the overgrowth, it was obvious that the little baby bird was in peril under there. I can't describe to you how distressing it was to watch and hear the parent birds crying alarm, fretting from branch to branch but unable to scare the cat away.

I tried to shoo away the cat, but the crafty so and so knew that I couldn't get over the fence. My feeble 'pfft' and 'bugger off' did nothing. A small rock throw disturbed the cat, but he came back one the projectile threat was over. I had to get over to the neighbours yard and considered climbing the fence but notice someone from my building was very openly watching me. I spoke to him to let him know what I was doing and to ask if he knew how to get over 'there'. He said 'go next door', duh.

I did go next door, which because it is also a hotel, the door is also open. Funnily enough, as I went to the area where the bird was, a woman was also on the hunt for the poor thing. She found it before I did, and it turns out she lives in the building next to mine.

We came back to my Hof to look for the nest, but couldn't find it, though I knew that it is normally about 4 levels up. The lady said that in that case, it is impossible to reach the nest and she would take the bird home to hand rear it. As she left, I showed her my nameplate on the intercom in case she wanted to contact me. She said 'great, because sometimes my cats go in there'. So it was HER cat that was tormenting the bird :( No wonder she took it to look after it and had said she had hand raised baby birds before...the cats and their wildlife surprises.

I left her to it and came back home. I regretted letting her take the bird, as I thought it would have been better for me to keep it, at least the parents would know where it was. But I don't know anything about birds. I only got the lady's first name so I can't contact her unless I see her on the street :( Ho hum.

Back at home, the poor parent birds were still making their commotion. I thought it was heartbreak at losing their little one and seeing the cat back again on the prowl.

But it wasn't just heartbreak, it was another effort to scare away the cat from a second baby! I couldn't see the second one until some more people in the Hof congregated another small black ball, and the cat had made itself scarce. I ran downstairs with a box and by the time I had got there, everyone had left and the bird was on its own on the bricks.

I put him in a box, and left him on on our Pfand pile on our balcony in the hopes the parents would easily find him.

Num-num was quite docile and seemed to be flightless and unable to see, so I left him there.

A short while later, Num-num had gotten out of his box and had fallen to the floor. I was worried he would further fall to the ground below, so relocated his box to the ground also, and taped up the sides. He seemed happy enough.

And then my plan worked, Num-num had let out some cries and daddy came looking for him.

And came back with some food.

In the meantime, I didn't know if I should feed Num-num or not, so looked on the internet for advice.

According to one site, a baby or fledgling bird has a 100% chance of death if it falls out of its nest onto the ground. In urban areas because predators, mostly cats, will come along and kill it. According to the website, 50% of hand-reared birds will survive / die. I hoped that because I am co-parenting, the survival chance for Num-num will be very high.

But I still tried to feed him, first some tomato (which isn't on the list of things to feed it) which he happily ate after a bit of coercion to 'gape'. I also gave it a bit of egg (which IS on the list) and eventually got him to eat a bit but it was a bit of mucking around.

I'd feathered the nest with some paper towel, and left Num-num for the night.

In the morning we were pleased to see he was still alive, and that his parents were making regular visits. We are now experts on who is the mum and who is the dad. Mum is dark brown, and dad is black with an orange beak,

In Num-num's enclosure there are his poops and some strange burgundy coloured stones. I saw Num-num vomit one up. My suspicions that these were berry pips were confirmed as his mum and dad are regularly feeding him small berries (held three at a time in their beaks).

The other popular thing is worms, of course!

They are also bringing something else, but we haven't worked it out yet. Maybe grasshopper.

So given that mum and dad know where he is, and that he is getting fed, I am no longer intervening in the feeding department. We just provide a safe balcony until he is ready to fly away. However the box he was in was quickly and badly soiled, so that has been replace by a lined and easily cleaned plastic box. Hopefuly Num-num likes reading the Berliner Morgenpost.

Thankfully, the new box hasn't disrupted anything and Num-num is happy chilling out in there.

And more importantly, the parents quickly came to give their seal of approval too, checking it out and coming back to feed Num-num.

We've been fascinated watching this unfold before us through our window. Num-num cries every now and then, and not long after, one of his parents comes to give him something to eat. So far, the parents are not living on our balcony and just make visits. I read that if the nest is destroyed, the mother will make another one. I guess it's possible that Num-num and his sibling just fell out, but we don't know. For now we will just keep his box clean and leave the rest up to nature, hopefully, when he is able, he will fly the blue nest and rejoin his proper one. 

Berlin's Biggest Pfannkuchen

Berlin doesn't do donuts very well. When you can get them, at bakeries or supermarkets, they always look days old and way too pale. Dunkin' Donuts is in Berlin, but so far I have refused to go there. 

I'm racking my brain to think if I have even EVER eaten a donut in Berlin. I don't think I have.

What I have eaten however, are Pfannkuchen, German donuts :) Basically they are jam filled donuts, no hole.

So - some time back I was looking into donuts (the search term was probably 'XXL donuts') and I ran across an old article about a bakery that made large pfannkucken. The bakery, 'Bäckerei Ladewig', were reported to make these giant Riesen Pfannkuchen, reportedly weighing in at 500g, and I was happy to see they were in nearby Kreuzberg.

The process to actually eating one was much lengthier than I would have expected. I had it in my head that I wanted to try these things fresh, which meant getting up early in the morning. That's a hard thing to do....plus, who really wants to eat a huge sugar bomb first thing in the morning?

So the first step was to actually check out if the bakery still made the big Pfannkuchen. I made a trip there...they did. Because it was late, I didn't get one, fearing it might be stale. I wanted to savor the experience!

Things got in the way and soon it was weeks, or even months, before I got there again. I woke up early(ish) on a Sunday morning and rode down to the bakery in Kreuzberg. I locked my bike up with sugary anticipation and marched into the bakery to finally pick up the big thing....but, there was none there!!! I don't know if they were sold out or they just don't make them on Sundays. In my disappointment I had failed to ask. What a letdown.

Life got in the way again (well, actually, sleeping in got in the way) before I was ready to give it another crack. Eventually we made it down there early(ish) and yesssssssssss the Pfannkuchen were there. Concerned that they might not be fresh, I asked if the goods were freshly baked that day, obviously insulting the baker somewhat. She assured me they were.

Two sorts were available, sugar dusted or iced. We went for sugar dusted. Cost - 3.45€

Of course we had to have a hot drink accompaniment. Waiting for the coffee and tea to be prepared only served to build the suspense.

Finally, seated with drinks and the giant Pfannkuchen, I started to worry that there would be no way such a huge thing could be fried to perfection.

Holding it in my hands finally was a philosophical make or break moment, holding my hopes and dreams finally before me. Please don't let me down!

I bit into it, the sugar sticking into my stubble, all over my cheeks and over my nose (it's that big)....and yeeeeeeeeesss, it's bloody good!

I've had my fair share of 'not so fresh' Pfannkuchen, and this one was probably the best and freshest I've had. Despite its size and weight, it remained moist and fluffy throughout.

The filling for this one was 'Pflaumenmus', a tart plum jam type of thing. Due to the largeness and sweetness of the Pfannkucken, the tartness of the Plaumenmus was a welcome balance. Bravo.

People that know normal store bought Pfannkuchen know that the filling is usually pretty stingy. Not so in Bäckerei Ladewig's Riesen Pfannkuchen.

The bakery had lots of other good stuff that I'd like to try, but I don't know if I will get to it as next time I will need to sample the iced Riesen Pfannkuchen. But someday I'll have to work my way through it all.

Bäckerei Ladewig

Oppelner Str.  4-5

10997 Berlin

Opening Times:

Mo-Fr	5:00-19:00
Sa	6:00-19:00
So	8:00-17:00