A Bird Tale

So I'm a dog person. Joe, Fifi, Happy, Lu, Amy, Chi Chi, Rosie, Sophie, Greta, Nona, now Max.

Also cats. Zelda, Abbie, Vincent, Pumpkin, Loren, Miller, Jenny, Murray, Hattie, Amy (again), Mary Margaret, Sarah, Sue, Emily.

Turtles, salamanders, hermit crabs. All nameless. Also brief.

Finches in grad school. One that lasted the entire program, then a series of companions for it. Only now do I recognize that I owned a serial killer.

Rabbits. Emily and Charlotte.

I had a lot of companion animals as a kid. It was the good legacy of my childhood.

I also had a parakeet named Petey. I don't remember him, but I've heard lots of stories, including the drama of Petey being lost as the "big storm approached". It had a happy ending.

So I went a lot of years with no bird. (OK, finches are birds, but you can't play with them.) Then fate delivered a jewel by the name of Callie.

Callie lived with her first mom, Kara, for eleven years. She was hatched when Kara was 19 and Callie was spoiled from the first moment. She was also required to deal with the give and take of a young adult's occasionally erratic life. These two ingredients blended to create the perfect bird: an eleven-year-old umbrella cockatoo, and now she lives with me.

Kara's life took some changes as life does between twenty and thirty. I was lucky enough to be standing in the right place at the right time. I had helped bird sit while Kara's life shifted. I played with her and fed her and when I didn't know what else to do, I sang. I didn't know too many bird songs, but I remembered "Yellow Bird" covered by Peter, Paul, and Mary in the '60's that my mother used to play, so I sang that to her. She seemed impressed. When Kara got serious about finding a good home, I was standing at the front of the line.

It would take a long time to describe how lucky I am to have Callie in my life. I'd rather just describe Callie.

She loves to cuddle. Except when she'd rather run down my leg to bite a toe. But that get's her a time-out, so she mostly cuddles. She sits, quietly, if I'm lucky, on my shoulder while I write. But sometimes, I spend more time retrieving her as she inches her way down the chair to the floor and then--oh my! She gets to chase Max around the room.

She takes grooming seriously. She expects me to check her feathers. She is patient while I file her nails each week. She feels a responsibility to pick the scabs off my hands and arms.

She's patient. She's been to every first grade class in my town, to talk about large birds and where they live and what they eat. The kids all want to touch her and she waits patiently while twenty little hands touch her feathers and her down.

She is pretty darn cranky if Nutri-berries aren't in her bowl within 5 minutes of my awaking, but she never makes a sound until I stir, even if it's noon. And she takes one bite out of the first Nutri-berry and then throws it on the floor. She is unimpressed that the damn things are expensive. According to the best bird sources I've read, she's supposed to eat a daily variety of foods in addition to the yummie pellets...like nuts and fruit and vegetables. NOT. On the other hand, she likes lentil soup, mac and cheese, grits, and orange juice.

She's a clown. She barks and meows and let's loose with some wild-ass screams. She bobs up and down enthusicastically if it will garner attention. After she's been alone for a while, she lets go with a big "HI!" when someone enters the room. If she hears me laugh, she laughs too. We sound alarmingly alike. If I tell a joke, sometimes she laughs even before I do...

And just for me, late at night, she quietly coos, "love you."

LR