A lightning-quick creature appeared in the door of a wicker birdhouse and glanced around.
It was an Australian zebra finch, black-and-white striped with a pink bill that indicated it was female.
”That one looks like it`s going to have babies,” speculated Bernice Morishita, 76.
Morishita wasn`t in the Outback. She was in the Sherman West Court nursing home in Elgin, where an aviary installed this summer has attracted a court of admirers, and egg-spotting has become a major topic of conversation. Nursing home operators say that having pets around, such as birds, tropical fish or dogs and cats brought for visits, do the often-isolated residents a world of good, by stimulating their interest and encouraging them to talk with each other.
Cleo Krugsrud, 81, stationed her wheelchair in front of the brightly lit aviary and leaned forward for a closer look at the colorful birds flitting about inside.
”They`re fascinating,” said the retired teacher. ”This is so educational. Just watching, you can learn a lot,” she said. ”You can watch the span of the wing and how the birds fly from one place to another.”
The aviary is no mere bird cage. It stands like a piece of fine furniture, an 8-by-7-by-3-foot enclosure, its windows framed in finished oak. It houses society finches, native to China; green singing finches;
bronze-winged manikins; tri-colored nuns; orange-cheek waxbills, native to Africa; and diamond doves, native to Australia and the smallest doves in the world.
The $5,000 aviary, installed in July, is a gift of the Elgin-based Safety-Kleen Corp. and its chief executive, Donald Brinckman.
”We saw an aviary at the Illinois Association of Homes for the Aging convention and decided to get one,” said Donna Melby, the center`s marketing director.
”We wrote Safety-Kleen, asking for a donation. They said, `Sounds great.` We said, `How much can we count on?` and they said, `The whole thing.` We got so excited,” Melby said.
Brinckman said, ”For the small investment, there`s a tremendous benefit.”
Melby contacted Living Design Inc. of Sioux Falls, S.D., which designs, builds, supplies and services aviaries.
Pets are increasingly used as a way to bring interest and stimulation to nursing home patients. A similar aviary at the Fair Oaks Health Care Center in Crystal Lake has brought much enjoyment to residents there in the last 11 months, according to Carol Price, the administrator.
For several years, a former nursing home in Wheaton placed cages of birds in rooms of elderly residents and bird feeders outside the windows.
Robert Behling, assistant professor of health service administration at the College of St. Francis in Joliet, is a member of the Delta Society, a Seattle-based nonprofit organizaton that studies the interaction between humans and animals.
He chairs a committee of the society that is drawing guidelines for animal programs in health care. He also has done research on what commonly is known as pet therapy.
Until recently, he said, there was a lot of anecdotal data but little hard, scientific information to prove that animal-assisted activity in therapy actually worked.
His sample of 233 long-term care facilities in Illinois showed that 46 percent of the nursing homes surveyed provided residents with some contact with animals.
Among those that did, the most common animals are fish, with 40 percent of the facilities using one to six aquariums. The next most common is birds, with 38 percent using one to seven cages, he said.
Some nonprofit organizations, such as the Crystal Lake-based Assisi Animal Foundation, bring pets to visit nursing homes.
”While not scientific, there is at least a perceived benefit,” Behling said. ”In the work I did, I found 80 percent of the staff perceiving psychological benefits to residents. Sixty percent perceived physical benefits.”
Melby said one woman resident hadn`t left her house for 15 years before arriving at Sherman West Court. Even after she arrived, she stayed in her room, except for meals.
But soon after the aviary arrived, the woman took a place in the semicircle of residents seated before the aviary, ”like watching a fireplace,” Melby said.
Another resident, Ruth Schuldt, is legally blind. But the 67-year-old woman is happy to sit for hours in front of the aviary, listening to the birds sing.
Thomas Campbell, 60, a temporary resident recovering from a stroke, said that before the aviary came he spent most of his time watching television. Now, ”I could sit here and watch all day,” he said.
Connie Roxworthy, 44, watched at a distance. A quadriplegic, her means of communication is by blinking.
She cannot tell the birds apart, she indicated, but she enjoys watching them.
Melby said plans call for starting a bird club.
”We plan to have a `Name the Bird` contest and take bets on when the eggs will hatch,” she said.
