My little shorn lamb

Today Mom came over and helped me clip Cooper's wings.

Cooper is very tame and he hasn't had clipped wings in at least 10 years. (Yes, he is quite a geezer now.)

The reason I decided he needed a trim was because he has recently been moved from a large house to a small apartment. He also is living with another bird for the first time ever.

It seems like there is bird behavior where if one takes off for whatever reason, the other wants to take off too, especially if they are close together. For Teka (the budgie) this isn't really dangerous because he is smaller and able to turn and avoid the walls. Cooper, on the other hand, has a naturally bigger wing span and has trouble turning in time when he is in a panic. He sometimes crashes into the wall and hits his head or his wing. He's even started bleeding on his nose after hitting the wall.

The solution I decided on was clipping Cooper's wings so he can't get as much speed when he starts flying. (I'm hoping he will gradually get calmer in the future. Another thing I could have done was not let both birds out at the same time.)

His feathers will grow out again in a few months, but by then he might be more comfortable with his new home and buddy and not be as quick to panic. We only clipped off about two inches of the outside two feathers on both wings. You can see his wings in this picture.



 Cooper still has 90 percent of his wing mass and can fly for short distances. He just can't get the same height and speed. Since Cooper loves walking and climbing around, limited flight is not a tragedy for him. He'd much rather ride on a human anyway.

The clipping did not hurt him because there were no arteries or veins in the feathers we cut. It was like giving a haircut to a nervous toddler. Cooper was not a fan of being held and having his wings stretched out and then trimmed, but a few minutes later he was back to his normal self.

I don't believe that clipping a bird's wings is mean to the birds. A pet bird like Cooper or Teka doesn't need to fly from predators. If you let a bird vet clip your bird or follow a guide, you won't hit any of the "blood feathers" that have an artery, so your bird won't feel any pain. Clipping only two (at most four) feathers on each wing will not rob a bird of all its flight power. It will just keep them from flying too fast and hurting themselves. This is some basic information about wing clipping, so if you still don't think it's a good idea, that's fine, but don't try to tell me wing clipping permanently maims a bird or anything like that.

And other people don't want to clip their bird's wings at all, which is fine. In my experience tame birds on the whole don't need it. I wouldn't have clipped Cooper's wings if I weren't worried about him literally giving himself a concussion or breaking his own wing.

Right now Cooper is wandering around on his playpen eating old seeds. Cooper, お元気で！

Sub or Dub?

This is a post I might include as a page on my final project for school.

Sub or Dub?

…It depends?

It depends on the person and it depends on the series.

There are some people who never feel comfortable reading text and watching the action at the same time, whether it’s on a small computer or a large movie screen. They will probably prefer dubbed versions.

Other people can't stand watching dubs of live action because the lip movements never quite match up. But they’re fine with dubs of animation where characters only have a few distinct mouth shapes and the voice actors can match the timing and the lip movements exactly.

I’m lucky to be the kind of person who is always writing in a journal, typing, or doing a craft while watching a movie. People ask me “Are you really watching the movie?” I am. I like doing stuff with my hands and can look back and forth between two places quickly. So reading subtitles isn’t hard for me.

You should go with the language version you’re more comfortable with.

Sometimes dubs add something really unique and creative to an anime series. For example, Baccano!, which takes place in 1930s America, all the characters have appropriate Chicago, New York, or Southern accents. And it’s hilarious. The regional dialect is lost in the Japanese version.

However, sometimes the dub is simply not up to quality. Characters sound robotic and wooden, or voices just don’t match characters. If a good dub isn’t available, you should go with the original even if that’s not your preference. Listing to grating voices won’t enhance your enjoyment of a series.

There are also some benefits to watching the Japanese version of a series. Language isn’t just utterance. It’s also facial expression and body language—and the gestures unique to the animation style. Japanese body language is not the same as American body language.

For example: as one friend pointed out to me, most Japanese vocalizations come from back in the throat and don’t require detailed lip and cheek movements. This is why Americans seem “expressive” to Japanese, while Japanese seem a bit “wooden-faced” to foreigners. The difference translates into animation style. You’ll notice that in ordinary conversation character faces don’t tend to move much—until they explode into overdramatic chibi style!

So for me, when characters have what seems like an obviously Japanese expression or pose, hearing English coming out of their mouth gives me this weird feeling of disconnect. Seeing a character say “I’m in your hands” feels wrong when I know they should be saying  よろしくお願いします. Some things just can’t be translated. However, I also know Japanese and have lived in Japan, so for someone else these moments might be invisible.

Whether people prefer subs or dubs is determined more by how they process information and their language background than whether or not they are a “real fan.” If you like dubs, you are still getting the real experience of anime and you’re appreciating the hard work of the English-speaking voice actors. No reason to kill your eyes for a hobby.  If you like subs, you get to experience a medium in a different language from your native one. Go you!

This is my opinion on subs and dubs.