We humans (or "hoomins" in lolcat-speak) are narcissistic creatures. We see our image in way too many things...and when we don't, we do things like Mount Rushmore. So it's no surprise that someone could parlay people captioning cat photos into a multi-million dollar empire. (Truth be told, pretty much everyone who's not Mr. Huh should be ashamed of her/himself for not thinking of it first.)
But every once in awhile, you'll encounter humour that turns anthropomorphism on its head...even in an age diminished by the retirement of The Far Side's Gary Larsen. One of the better samples is If People Acted Like Pets. Also, Things Cats Do That'd Be Creepy if You Did Them.
With dogs and cats, those folks are reaching for the low-hanging fruit. Yes, I have a standard-issue Office Cat. He keeps a fairly regular schedule. There's the regulation morning lap takeover. (And he acts like he's King of the World for jumping up, even after I've invited him. Dork.) Then it's usually nap-time until about 1.5 - 2 hours before Second Kibble Time, during which he becomes insufferable. Mercifully, he equates opening the office door with feeding and zooms into the hallway...after which I shut the door on him (and his whining) and turn up the volume accordingly. Then Second Kibble Time and then a second lap takeover and finally post laptime-naptime (which not coincidentally is the most productive part of my day).
But the Office Finches I'm stuck with the entire time I'm clocked in. We brought six of them north with us. Four were already older than the average life-span for their species. The other two--a Zebra finch and an African Silverbill finch--were very young. So it was a shock a few weeks back when the Silverbill (first named "Belle" and then "Bill" and then "Belle" again because she liked gender-bending before finally laying the question to rest...along with several eggs) caught us off-guard by sickening and dying in less than a day.
The remaining finch (named "Harpo" for a raucous call that's all too reminiscent of the blond Marx brother's famous horn), freaked out at being alone. So for three days I streamed YouTube bird songs to calm her down until I could make it into town to recruit an acceptable substitute for Belle. I found it in a Society (a.k.a. Bengalese) finch with two toes that point upward instead of downward. (It seems to do just fine, btw.) New finch is a golden-brown (sort of a buff colour) which suggested names like "Buffy" or (in homage to my country-of-residence) "Timbit." But I try not to be superficial, and held off to allow it to name itself.
And so, after Belle's dainty ablutions in the water-dish were replaced by wholesale splashing and drenched newspaper, new finch duly earned its tribal name of "Duck." Yep--this one has a freaky side. And I wouldn't want it any other way.
But just as cats and dogs hold up a fun-house mirror to human behaviour, the same can be said for finches. For one thing, finches are maniacally social (not surprising for flock animals). The only exception I've known in 18 years was a runty Lady Gouldian Finch named Irene who didn't like anyone...except a damaged little Silverbill rescued from the horrible PetCo on the north side of Rochester, MN. She'd peck anyone else out of her personal space...yet "Vir" was allowed to sleep absolutely plastered up against her at night.
Less humourously, finches are pretty ruthless about enforcing the pecking-order. They can literally bite the hand that's trying to help them. They can be stubbornly picky eaters and throw away a lot off perfectly good food. They can be dreadful parents (at least in the case of some Gouldians). And sometimes even "normal" relations can become abusive. (As much as they would have preferred to share the same cage, Harpo's grooming of Belle was enough to pull out feathers, and so they had to have adjacent cages. They sat as close as the bars possibly allowed.)
But finches can also reflect the qualities that we "hoomins" prize most about ourselves. When Dennis & I made the trek from Wisconsin to New Brunswick, I was more than worried about Skip, a Gouldian male who was extremely near-sighted. The poor little dude spent most of the trip on the floor of the cage, but valiantly survived...and lived for most of year afterward despite being well into the upper end of Gouldian life-expectancy. When Joe, another Gouldian, became frail and also extremely near-sighted with age, he kept his spirits and his song until a week or so before the end. My hero.
There are the escape artists who who made me laugh even through the frustration of trying to catch them. The Gouldian pair who kept up a steady Statler-and-Waldorf commentary through the Green Bay Packers radio broadcasts. The Society finches who would have happily tried to brood a football until it hatched. The Gouldian who generously let me top up her babies with finch formula at night...but glared at me the whole time as if I was feeding them Skittles & Mountain Dew. The Society finch who could hang upside down like a bat. The ones with whom I (apparently) made a communication breakthrough, because when I made a certain noise, they would respond in a specific way. (I have absolutely no idea what we were discussing but...whatever.)
I miss them all. Dreadfully. But the current pair reminds me that there is plenty of quirk still left in the world. They've already shown a tendency to yell bloody murder when I dork around with piezzo buzzers on the Arduino. Sometimes they also yell at my music choices. (Problem is, with finches, I'll never know if they're actually objecting to my tastes or just ironically shouting "Freebird!")
Yet I'm pretty certain that my code would lose something without their chatter and (mostly) harmless madness in the background. And my sense of noblesse oblige would most certainly take a hit if I only had to think of my own care and feeding. When you sometimes don't make it outside the house for a week at a time, it's a reminder that you don't necessarily have to surround yourself with humans to maintain contact with your humanity. Or "hoomanitee," as the case may be.
