Before Wishes, Maxie, Johnny, and Zuchie, there was Papa Bird. It hasn’t even been three weeks since we had to say goodbye to Maxie and our family is mourning another loss.
It was years ago when I was walking from my workstation to another part of the building when I passed a woman from customer service. I had seen her around the building from time to time, but I didn’t know her. I made eye contact and said, “Hello.” She responded with, “You. You will take them.” Needless to say the exchange caught me by surprise and I stopped in my tracks. She explained either her son and his girlfriend or her daughter and her boyfriend had a pair of bonded cockatiels that needed to be rehomed and she just knew I would take them. She had them at her home and we made arrangements in a very small, quiet, rural community for me to follow her to her home to get the birds.
They were in two cages. She explained they needed to be separated because they were male and female, but they needed to be with each other because they were bonded. She said she thought the one in the wire floor cage was the male and the one in the solid floor cage was the female. I asked her their names and she didn’t know, but then she said she thought the male was “Sunny.” On bright blue summer day, she helped me load two bird cages and two birds into my car for me to bring home.
We set them up in the dining room close to each other so they could see each other, but separate. Sunny would stand at the closest point to the other cage and scream. He did not think the living arrangement was ideal. It broke my heart to see the star-crossed lover pining for his love that he could never touch. I also felt they were captive in their little cages, so I soon allowed them to be free. Sunny hung out at his love’s pad rather than his own.
We discussed what we were going to name the birds, but we really couldn’t think of anything. While Sunny came with the name Sunny, it just didn’t stick. We found ourselves calling them “Momma Bird” and “Daddy Bird.” Being the parent of two children, I knew a little about the birds and the bees, but I did not literally know about the birds. My goodness, these two little birds had birdie sex constantly. There is a distinct sound they make and soon we would recognize when they were having sex from other rooms. They were adorable. They’d groom each other and were very affectionate. Momma Bird would sidle up to Daddy Bird and tilt her head begging him to primp and preen her, and he would. As lovey dovey as they were, they also had squabbles quite frequently. They had a volatile and passionate relationship. We were entertained.
Daddy had the cat call whistle down pat and would whistle whenever anyone removed clothing. Seriously. He was vocal. Whenever we used the microwave, it went beep, beep, beep as we pushed the buttons and Daddy beeped, beeped, beeped back. If he heard whistling on a TV show or if we whistled or even if a bird whistled outside, Daddy whistled in return. Daddy was a talker.
Daddy Bird was more timid around humans than Momma Bird, and he appeared to be a bit less coordinated too. He was extremely dependent on her and if she flew away from him, which she did frequently, he’d panic and scream for her to return. We spent time after time trying to coax him unto us so we could return him to her location. We joked that we thought Momma Bird did it deliberately to get some alone time. We never understood why he had such a hard time navigating back, but he did, and he was also not quite happy with our assistance whenever he lost his way. This was our routine, however.
It didn’t take very long for Momma Bird to start laying eggs, cementing her name as “Momma Bird” and his as “Daddy Bird.” She laid the eggs on the solid floor of the cage. I read up on egg-laying and learned it was not healthy for hens to continuously lay eggs. I also read the eggs would need a nesting box in order to incubate. I let her tend to her clutches to discourage more egg-laying and then I would throw the eggs out after a couple of months and the cycle would start again. She had a clutch of two eggs she was caring for when on an early December morning my son called out to us from the Momma’s bird cage. He pointed out that one of the eggs was chirping. Low and behold, it was! We were going to have a hatchling. I was stunned. Both eggs hatched a day apart and Wafer and Cookie came into the world. I set up a little bowl as a nest and both Momma and Daddy took care of the little chicks. It was an amazing experience.
When the chicks’ pin feathers began to poke through, Momma Bird became obsessed with trying to rip them out. She was hurting the baby birds and we made the decision Momma needed to be separated from the family. Momma went to the wired-bottomed cage and Daddy became a single parent. He was an excellent parent. He fed and raised those baby birds and was just as attentive to them as he was with Momma Bird before they became parents. We allowed Momma visitation under supervision. The baby birds fledged and soon we had 4 cockatiels flying around the house. Sometimes Daddy Bird would still get stuck alone in another room and we would have to help him return to the flock.
Daddy Bird and Momma Bird began having birdie sex again and I conducted more research on how to discourage hens from laying eggs and soon Momma and Daddy were living in the wired-bottom cage and the babies were in the solid-bottom cage. That worked. Momma and Daddy returned to their passionate and volatile relationship, with Daddy giving his full attention to Momma, preening and primping her, interrupted only by their vociferous squabbles. They were incredibly amusing.
We lost Wafer to an accident, so Cookie was all alone. Soon I switched jobs and moved. When I did, I looked for a large wire-bottom cage that would be roomy enough to house all three remaining birds. Oddly enough, Momma Bird laid one more egg in the food dish, but that was the last time she laid an egg. Due to Wafer’s accident, and the fact we couldn’t trust Wishes with the birds like we could trust Zuchie, we confined them to their cage.
Momma was injured once and had to be in her own cage to heal for a time and Daddy returned to pressing himself against the cage as close as he could be to her and screamed. Once she could hold her own, she returned and all was right with Daddy again. Somewhere along the way and over time, Daddy Bird became Papa Bird. I’m not really sure how it happened. I noticed months ago his feathers around his eyes were thinning, similar to how I noticed grey coming in on Max’s muzzle – and dare I say my own head. Papa was aging.
He still chirped and climbed around. His squabbles with Momma Bird was replaced with squabbles with Cookie. He and Momma slept on a perch, Cookie slept on top of the water dish. If we sat near him and weren’t paying attention, he would throw seed at us. He was very skilled at tossing seed. He was curious and loved interacting with us, he would chirp away, tilt his head looking at us, and squawk anytime I tried to touch him. He had a strict look but no touch policy.
Yesterday was a day like any other day, the birds were chirping and squawking and doing bird things like they do. I heard fluttering in the afternoon, which isn’t all that unusual and didn’t alarm me as the birds will fly here and there in the cage. The fluttering stopped and didn’t escalate. When I stepped into the room a few moments later, however, I was shocked to see Papa Bird on the floor of the cage belly down with his wings spread. I swear I saw his eye open and I thought he may still be alive. I retrieved him from the cage; he was warm, but I didn’t feel a heartbeat. Papa Bird was gone. I cradled him and I envisioned Maxie was there to greet him and he traveled away on Maxie’s back.
Fly free Papa Bird. <3