Now and again someone shares a story with me that I just think should be shared with my fellow flock families. I decided to dedicate a page to these stories that I feel are worth sharing.
Flock Stories
A
Friendly Flock
Aviary
Paulie's story
Hello Denise,
My girlfriend Holly sent me the link to your page…
The story about “Moki” (from your friend Steve?) compelled me to write.
Holly and I were both were devastated this weekend by the loss of our beloved Paulie… a Turquoise female linnie of just 9 months.
Paulie came to us 7 months ago from one Lyn Chaffart (a breeder some 1500 miles to the East near Toronto) Lyn flew her out at the age of 2 months. We had a peek at her in her tiny cage in the airport, covered it up with a big blanket to protect her from the cold winter outside and made the nervous drive across town to Holly’s house where her newly constructed cage was waiting.
Like a couple of expectant parents we opened the travel box and asked her to “step up” She immediately hopped aboard my finger gave us a look as if to say “OK everybody… here I am” and made her way up my arm to my shoulder. A place that would be become one of her favorite roosting places.
Holly has always had birds but really got “Linnie fever” last year. In fact just prior to Polly’s arrival she had just received 2 pairs from a woman in Edmonton who simply bred them and never trained or took the time to tame them. “I can do that” Holly said.
We estimated the four birds to be about a year old and little Paulie took to her newly adopted (and bigger) brothers and sisters with a fearless confidence that I have never seen before in any animal. While the other birds would leave the cage and fly about they would seldom light down on us and would have to be caught if we wanted to handle them. All of them seemed to be in awe of Paulie’s bond with us and we felt their confidence in us growing as a result of the time she spent with us. It was like: “Hey guys… you don’t know what you’re missing… Holly and Wayne are great to hang out with!”
About 3 months ago the 2 greens birds produced a clutch of six eggs in their first go-around. Sadly, only one egg was fertile. It did however hatch a gorgeous (male we think) chick whom we named “Apple”. (the color of a Granny Smith apple)
As Apple got bigger he seemed to want to bully Paulie, so Paulie happily took up residence in her own cage. “What the hey!” She spent most of her time hanging with Holly and with me on my many visits and weekends at Holly’s house. One of the other blues seemed to be very interested in her and spent a lot of time atop her cage and hanging out together when they were out on free time. We thought: “Those two are going to make some nice babies”
It was our intention to not have Paulie have her own clutch until she was a year or so old.
2 more chicks arrived just 2 weeks ago (again from a clutch of 6) with “Banjo” and “Clipper” the new kids on the block. (we intend to go “around the alphabet” in names)
With 2 more babies in the house, our linne count was now up to 8!
Last Friday, the unthinkable happened… Alone, Holly was going through her morning ritual and out of nowhere her cat pounced on Paulie when Holly had her back turned for a single instant. That damn cat! We were in the process of finding him a new home as he was showing far too much of a diabolical interest in the birds.
Poor little Paulie whose wings were clipped was unable to fly to safety and the cat clamped down on her. Holly had her free in a split second and Paulie, other than having the wits scared out of her she looked no worse for wear. Holly cleaned her up and checked her over and made sure she had not visible injuries
This happened just this last Friday morning and when I visited Friday night, poor Paulie looked to be in some discomfort as she was lifting one foot up (as if in pain) She was eating and drinking however and we both thought she might just be a bit sore.
On Saturday I was feeling ever so relieved when she hopped up on my hand, marched up my arm to her favorite resting place.
She played with me for a couple of hours while Holly was on errands, she beat her wings proudly and jumped from knee to knee and then slept for over an hour under my chin (like she often did) while I watched some football. We were hanging out like old times.
There’s no easy way to tell the rest of the story… An hour or so later, she simply seemed to be weaker… Holly home by this time made her some food and placed her back in her cage… She was pecking at her food and drinking. Again I felt relieved.
We had to head out for an hour or two and sadly returned home to find her with her feathers “puffed up”… looking noticeably sick.
Holly checked her body thoroughly again for any cuts or scrapes she might have missed the day before and could only find the faintest scratch on her back. After applying a mild tincture Holly ran out to the pet store for a medicine drink and some soft food mix. We mixed some medicine into her feed and we gave her a few syringe sips of the food and the medicine drink. Holly wrapped her and kept her warm under her shirt. Half an hour later we fed her a second time and she actually began to look a little stronger. Then no more than twenty minutes later while I was holding her, carefully wrapped in a warm cloth she just “slipped away”. Like a soft breath blowing out a tiny little flame.
The agony we felt then was as painful as anything I can remember in my life. I kept on thinking “How can I be so devastated by this tiny loss?” “How can losing this little bundle of feathers and bone hurt so much?”
We don’t know if it was a tiny puncture, some fast-acting infection or simply the trauma of her attack that took her life, but she left us in a heartbeat.
While she was just a tiny little jewel that you could almost hide in your hand, she had the spirit of an Eagle. If courage alone could have saved her or healed her injuries, it surely would have.
I can only think back to that last afternoon she spent with me. While the sand of her hourglass was down to its last few grains, she frolicked and played, lightly pecked at my cheeks and neck, she climbed from my shoulder up the temple of my glasses to nest in my hair (another favorite spot of hers) It was great fun.
Little did I know she was giving me a wonderful gift; the gift of a last few hours.
Holly’s children were visiting with their father this weekend and her 10 year old daughter was just given the news this afternoon. She took it quite hard. But kids are resilient… and she has her hamster, Holly’s Jack Russell terrier, and of course the other 8 linnies.
I’ve closed the door to my office as I finish typing this because this middle-aged guy is not quite as resilient as her 10 year old.
While trying to make sense of this all last night, I told Holly: “Perhaps Paulie’s purpose in life was to give hers… in order to show us how fragile life is… Perhaps one day this lesson would find us taking just that extra bit of care… Care that just might save a life. The life of one Holly’s children, or own her life, or even mine”
We’ll continue to love and raise linnies, and while we are bound to have many more wonderful birds, I’m sure gonna’ miss my Paulie.
Best regards to you both and your friend Steve.
Wayne & Holly
Winnipeg CANADA
A little history here about Judi, she adopted Twiglet in 06. She was having some personal problems at home and decided she had to rehome a couple of her birds. Twiglet was the youngest so she thought she would make an eisier transition. Judi would not let Twiglet go to just any home she searched long and hard. She found a wonderful person just perfect for Twiglet, she found Randi. Randi is one of the directors of the NY Bronx Zoo, and has been a bird trainer for over 12 years! She is brilliant, has a Masters Degree in Conservation Biology. She is totally committed to animals, both personally and professionally. I think Judi did a wonderful thing & I love her for all she has done for Twiglet. Randi has renamed twiglet to twig and here is a recent note she sent Judi. I just wanted to share it I think it is wonderful.
Hello Judi –
Been waiting all weekend to get to my computer in order to send you this email (and photos)….!
Twig has been doing great! And on Friday, she had quite the “party adventure” - - - she was such a huge hit, and was loving all the attention SO much, that the next morning she slept until 9:15am!!
What party?
Well, it was a fund-raising event for Dr. Irene Pepperberg .
My work friend, Diana Reiss, who is a well-known scientist in the animal cognition world (her work discovered that Dolphins can recognize themselves in a mirror – as opposed to most other animals that see the image as another animal), has been friends with Irene for a very long time, and wound up offering her apartment as the location for a fund raiser for the Alex Foundation.
Irene is without formal funding, and is currently renting lab space at Brandeis University – so she goes around and has both large and small gatherings as fundraisers (since the companion parrot community loves her – the group at this gathering were mainly crazy-bird-people!).
So Diana had invited me, and a few other bird people from work, as her guests. I was with Diana and Irene on Thursday night at a different lecture at the zoo – and while chatting, they found out I had a bird and invited Twig to come with me to the party! They knew they had a couple of other birds coming….
It sounded like a good idea to me - - I’ve been really wanting to keep up the great work you had done, Judi, with having Twig so well socialized.
Twig was a HUGE hit! Everyone loved her, and she was the perfect party guest! She easily perched on anyone who would reach for her, preening and getting lots of scritches. We stayed well away from the other birds (2 african greys and a severe macaw) – but so many people ‘flocked’ over to Twig, since she was happy to step-up on anyone!
There were about 3 people in particular that were extremely taken with her – one of the funniest was this man:
He was holding her on his hand (she was sitting on his thumb and getting a nice head scritch from his pointer finger) – when one of the party hosts handed him his nametag. He started to try putting on his nametag with one hand – so I said “you probably need more than one hand to do that. Can I help?...”
Fully expecting him to hand me Twig so that he could put the nametag on….but NO….he hands me the NAMETAG!!
He couldn’t bear to put Twig down, so he asked me to put on the tag!
It was SO funny!!
I had a chance to grab one quick photo - - knowing that you guys would love this…..
Twig with Irene!!!
I can not even fully describe how much fun it was with her – and I can’t even begin to express my admiration and appreciation to you Judi – you raised her SO well, that she was friendly and interested in all the new stimulus and was eager to interact with so many new people!
My conure was always a 1-person bird, so I never had this experience….
It’s so much fun to watch other people’s faces light up when interacting with her – and to watch HER be so engaged and enjoying herself!
I also finally snapped a photo of her playing at the window - - I can’t seem to get the light right, so most photos have too much or too little light. You can see she’s still molting – some new tail feathers are coming in.
Hope this start of spring is happening up north where you are!
Best wishes!
-Randi
Last updated: 10/1/2007
Dr. Irene Pepperberg & Twig
