Since talking to my long-lost relatives in England and New Zealand, I’ve been thinking about the sorts of family traits that may surface…other than physical attributes. For example, what types of behaviours could not possibly be attributed to upbringing (since the families grew up apart), and to what extent could they be explained by coincidence?
One thing that stands out for me is birds.
Sarah Pring, my great-great-great-grandmother liked birds. Apparently she had an emu egg that she treasured from her time in Australia. Unfortunately it became too fragile and didn’t survive to this day.
Evelyn Ridgway, my great-grandmother also liked birds and would feed them everyday. This trait is also shared by at least one of her daughters, a couple of cousins and my father.
It seems that everyone I talked to mentioned birds as something that defined them or other family members. In particular, it was the enjoyment of wild birds; not pet birds, not bird watching, but being in the company of wild birds.
As a child, birds were a part of our life. On a number of occasions Dad would appear with a little naked chick for us to hand-rear. My sister once kept a newly hatched Starling alive with squashed worms until the cat bettered her security measures. I myself woke up every couple of hours to feed a fluffy black swan Dad brought home from work, until it disappeared into the night almost fully grown. Then there’s Gregory Peck.
Gregory was a tiny stripy emu chick that Dad gave to my sister to look after. He used to run around inside the house until we got sick of cleaning up his business, which was right about the time he was knee-high and running into things too often. Emus aren’t exactly the smartest animals alive. Gregory even came on holidays to the caravan park with us at Christmas time and became a local celebrity, with cars pulling up to meet him in our house paddock. As Gregory got older, his neck went blue and he started to make drumming noises. Then the eggs were a dead give away – Gregory was a Greggette. She still lives in the house paddock to this day, 15 years on. I wonder how long emus live for.
Last year Dad went around Australia in a caravan with my mother. There’s a regular industry in this type of trip for ‘Grey Nomads’. Mum & Dad called it their ‘Dementia Adventure’. Mum wrote a newsletter as they travelled and in every one it mentions the type of bird Dad happened to be feeding where they were staying. It was usually some multicoloured tropical parrots or flightless kookaburras or something that would take food straight out of his hand.
So, why birds? Personally I can’t see the attraction. I don’t like birds that much. Too pecky. Scratchy claws. Nice to look at though. Is there really a family trait, or is it just coincidence?
I think an attraction to birds is in my family’s nature, otherwise it wouldn’t have been mentioned as a defining feature of some of the key family members, particularly direct line ancestors. The incidence seems to be higher than could be explained by the general distribution of bird lovers in the community. However, I think that it just might be in my family’s nature to be attracted to small, fuzzy things. We’ve always had a menagerie of animals at our house and found ourselves in occupations involving animals, including farming. In short, I think we’re a bunch of big softies for cute and cuddly.
But I can’t help but wonder what else I’ve inherited can’t be explained by my upbringing.
