Rosemary Miner doesn't have much time to cook, and though she and her husband, Milton, live on a country road in rural Cattaraugus County, they are too busy to spend quiet time together. Even holidays leave little time for celebration.

"Christmas? We do the same thing we do every day," answered Rosemary. "We have dinner and we take care of the birds. We're working. We're so busy. Our birds are our life."

With few nights out, not many friends, no vacations and no children, the Miners' marriage of more than 40 years is rock solid. The main reason, they both agreed, is their time-consuming common passion.

"These are all my kids," said Rosemary about the 400 protected and endangered ducks, geese and swans that inhabit Gooseneck Hill Waterfowl Sanctuary. "They're really better than kids. You don't have to pay for their college education, but you have to pay for their food for life."

That's $10,000 a year in bird feed, according to Milton, a retired high school math teacher, who estimated it takes 500 pounds of wheat, oats and corn to power their fowl through the week.

"We're not country hicks or rednecks or anything like that," said Milton, whose cap sports an American eagle, one of the many patriotic garments he likes to wear. "We're professional people who like nature."

In the beginning

They met at a dance club in Dunkirk on Memorial Day 1967. Rosemary's family had been staying at a nearby cottage, and she and a cousin went out to hear a band called the Exciters, when Milton asked Rosemary to dance.

"We went out for the first time, I think it was June 2, and we got married on Dec. 27, 1969," recalled Milton, who was raised outside Erie, Pa. "So we were dating for two and a half years."

"That was before the birds," Rosemary chirped, "way before the birds. We had a Christmas wedding with a ceremony at Queen of Martyrs and reception at Hearthstone Manor. My girls were all in red and green."

The two newlyweds were making their way -- he was a math teacher at Lancaster High School and she was a social worker at Niagara Lutheran Home -- until a car accident in 1975 badly injured Rosemary's back.

That's when the birds started calling.

After she complained of boredom during months of recuperating at home, Milton bought Rosemary a white cockatiel.

"I trained this little bird," she said. "It was the cutest little thing. Freddy lived 15 years. He used to sit on my shoulder."

Next was the Amazon parrot, and years later when three white call ducks wandered onto their property on Vermont Hill Road in Holland, the Miners gave them a home -- and more.

"They were males, so we bought females and all of a sudden we had many ducks," Milton said.

What turned pet into passion was another gift Milton bought for his wife. An acquaintance from the Buffalo & Western New York Poultry Association was moving to Florida and needed to sell 11 geese. Rosemary received them for her birthday.

"I don't like fancy things," she said. "I'd rather have birds. They're really neat animals. Parrots are probably one of your best friends."

Birth of a sanctuary

By 1999, the Miners had 150 waterfowl in the aviary they created at their Holland home, but the birds quickly outgrew the space. When Rosemary's uncle offered a 54-acre wooded parcel in the Town of Ashford, Gooseneck Hill Waterfowl Sanctuary -- existing on two levels with 39 species of waterfowl -- was born.

"We developed the whole thing, dug the ponds and cleared the land," Milton said, standing with Rosemary in the lower sanctuary. "Everything we installed ourselves except the fencing, which is hot-wired."

When the great Gowanda flood last year sent streams raging through the sanctuary destroying the lower level and killing 50 birds, a local labor union hauled and placed 350 tons of stone to fortify embankments.

Milton watched every minute. He is the serious spouse. Rosemary is bubbly with a signature laugh that can resemble the call of a cockatoo. Together they could be on the cover of an L.L. Bean clothing catalog. Together they do all the work that keeps the sanctuary thriving, including hosing it down twice daily of the droppings that from one goose can occur every 16 seconds.

"You have to care for the birds no matter what because if you don't nobody else will," Rosemary said. "All one bird has to do is make a noise, and they're all on the alert and head for the water because that's where they're safe."

A gaggle of waterfowl led by Siberian red-breasted geese quickly disperse in a honking, flapping flurry. Rosemary suspects a predator, most likely a turkey vulture.

A handsome bar-headed goose -- pale white with black markings on its head and neck -- floats by, the highest flying bird in the world, Rosemary noted.

"It flies higher than most airplanes," she said. "It's the only bird that has two air sacks in front of its lungs. It breathes the air twice so the lungs don't freeze. When they fly, they go straight up to get the altitude real fast."

Rosemary's bird knowledge is immense. She reads the magazines of the American Pheasant and Waterfowl Society, International Wild Waterfowl Association and Bird Talk. In 2004, the Miners received the Southwick Memorial Award from the International Wild Waterfowl Association to honor their efforts in raising and protecting endangered waterfowl.

Inside the bird room

"People love my laughter," said Rosemary. "My birds inside laugh just like me."

Rosemary is referring to the soundproof bird room built into their house where nine tropical birds live. The temperature is kept at 74 degrees, and two air cleaners filter out the white powdery dander that parrots, cockatoos and cockatiels shed.

"They all come out of their cages and play while I clean," she said. "It takes three hours every day."

Around the room Rosemary walks, introducing her indoor bird family. There's Oscar, who is particularly loud, "the only one I can't handle," she explained. Rocky the African Gray parrot is the oldest at 38, and a Moluccan Cockatoo named Yogi who was formerly owned by Rick James.

"Rocky comes out at night and watches television with us," Rosemary said. "He likes to be kissed."

Milton looks on proudly. He had just returned from taking Sasha, a white German shepherd, outside. The dog, named after Olympic figure skater Sasha Cohen, is their fifth dog.

"Life is so short," Rosemary said. "In the wild, a bird will live for maybe three years. Here most of them live 10 to 15 years. They die of a lot of things that humans die from -- old age, heart attacks, liver and kidney problems."

The Miners eat no red meat. They each take 60 vitamins daily. Most of each day they spend outside working. They are vibrant, grounded and committed to birds.

"We're never sick," said Rosemary. "We can't be sick. We have to go out and take care of the birds every day. We've kind of dedicated our lives to saving all the species we have here."

jkwiatkowski@buffnews.com null