Erik Zwaga (69) from Eindhoven is disappointed. Last weekend his birdcage was blown to pieces, causing his self-bred birds to go out into the wide world. There is a good chance that his birds will not survive.
As an avid bird watcher, Erik can often be found in nature. Armed with his binoculars, always looking for birds. At home he also enjoyed his own birds in a cage in his garden. The birds are about four years old and bred by him.
“The cage was close to the sliding door behind the house, so I could always hear them well. Now with spring on the way, they just started singing beautifully again.”
Erik himself was training with his grandson on the ice rink when the wind hit his birdcage at home. With in that cage a couple of canaries, a goldfinch, a Dutch finch and two siskins.
“They don’t come back, they are not carrier pigeons”, he says with a laugh. But the longer he talks about his birds, the closer he gets to crying than to laughing.
“Yes, it really touched me and saddened me too. Very upset. I’ve kept birds all my life. I could really enjoy them 24 hours a day, the color, the vocals, how they move.”
“They have no idea how to get food in nature.”
But most of all, he really cares about the birds. “They are breeding birds, they are not used to living in nature. They are served a meal every day and have no idea how to get food in nature.” The cold, strong wind and large amounts of rain also worry him.
For the finches and the siskins, he sees a small chance of survival because they are originally wild birds. But he doesn’t have much hope for the canaries. He placed an appeal on Facebook to publicize the search for his birds, which has already received several reactions. He secretly hopes that someone will find the pair of canaries.
“In this weather, they weaken quickly and you can pick them up easily. For example, a man from Reusel told me that he had found a canary, but it wasn’t.”
Erik is now trying to repair his birdcage so that he can keep birds again. “But I attach that loft to our house, so that it doesn’t blow away anymore.”