Posts Tagged With: birds

I’ve been periodically glancing blogward and feeling an urge to update it, without much inspiration for meaningful content (ha, how would that change my infrequent musings – I hear you say!). So tonight I logged on and with the help of a quick search I realised I never mentioned the wonder of Quaker parrots on here. Which is dreadfully remiss. Having returned to this paragraph having been writing for a while, this has turned into a bloody dissertation – I do apologise!

Like most things in life for someone who rarely has a plan or goal, my introduction to them was completely accidental! I’m sure I’ve mentioned my cockatiels on here, sadly they’ve long since passed away. As a child I first encountered a cockatiel at a house my Dad was doing some work at over the weekends, he was called Matey and we were smitten with him. We’d had pet budgies at home so were already definitely pet bird aficionados.

A birthday or two later my brother Rich received a cockatiel he called Paz, my childhood forays into cockatiel ownership was a bit more fraught – we rescued an untamed one I called Archie. Despite trying to utilise the hand-reared Paz and lots of patience and treats, Archie was not keen on the idea of being tamed – and when something spooked him to the point that she nearly savaged Paz to death in a fight we opted to re-home him to an aviary to let her be wild, where she thrived.

Undeterred I was treated to a hand-reared freshly weaned cockatiel, a beautiful pearl little bird I called Klaw (this so far is a lesson in the miss-more-than-hit process of letting children name their pets I guess!). He was awesome, I remember banning my Dad from spending too much with him to avoid him bonding with him which Paz had done, haha. Sadly, he succumbed quite soon to some kind of congenital illness, worst of all after he’d passed away Paz started showing symptoms too but thankfully recovered.

Fast forward to adulthood, freshly graduated and working and buying my first house (that said, before that whilst still renting Rich moved in with Paz for a while, still going strong!), one of the first things I did was buy myself a cockatiel. Lloyd was another pearl mutation, who turned out to be a she – and Frankie arrived soon after, another girl – a present from my then partner. A couple of years later we added a third, Phoebe.

Shortly after that relationship broke down, Phoebe – in echoes of Klaw – picked up some kind of illness. Now armed with the internet and more readily available avian veterinarians I spent a fortune trying to get her well, but alas she wasn’t strong enough. Frankie had bonded with Phoebe and was terribly impacted, since Lloyd had clearly bonded with me from being my only bird she never really showed much interest in Frankie, bless her.

The silver lining was Frankie became more tame with me, particularly if she went through a spate of egg laying! After buying the a new house after the break-up, it was me, Lloyd and Frankie living happily with the neighbours cats looking at them through the patio doors. Lloyd had a few medical issues along the way, including egg-binding which my network of avian vets were able to resolve. But one day unexpectedly on returning home I found her at the bottom of her cage. I was devastated.

Which left me and Frankie. I think we got through the loss together, she became much more fully tame and wanted to spend all her time with me – which made it much easier! I decided that since I go to work, and do leave the house on occasion I should look at getting her a companion of her own kind again – however, I didn’t want to inflict a young rambunctious baby on her – partly because it would probably annoy her, and also in a more macabre sense I’d just repeat the problem as it’s likely the young ‘un would outlive her considerably.

So I turned to rescues – which, frankly, is what in good conscience any aspiring bird-keeper should do – I was pretty ignorant to that in my formative forays into parrot-keeping. I registered for a load of them, one in particular was really communicative and did a home-check. They briefly suggested I ‘safehouse’ an Amazon but I had been really clear I was looking for an older cockatiel where maybe the owner had passed away, or had fallen out of favour for some other reason.

Then the lady who’d home checked me got in touch – she’d hand-reared a Quaker parrot that had been rejected by its mother, it was incredibly tame and playful but unfortunately her son had an allergic reaction to its feathers. Perhaps foolishly I arranged to go and see it. Rook was an absolute delight, a powder blue tiny bundle of chaos, playfulness and affection – frankly, the temptation was too strong and he came home with me. He was respectful of Frankie mostly, but certainly the two of them showed no interest in one another once his quarantine period upstairs was over, except for stealing each others’ food!

So that plan didn’t really work, did it? It was okay though – with scheduled out time and Rook’s contentment to play on his stand, Frankie still had plenty of me-time, Then the lesson in patience manifest – another rescue reached out, they’d got a gentle 20 year old cockatiel called Bill (Frankie was 18 or 19 by this point). His owner had passed away, their family had good intentions and took him on but neglected him over time, he ended up in a room on his own, more often than not covered up. Exactly what I was looking for when I first started the search.

I visited Bill and brought him home the same day – he was a nervous but lovely boy, he liked to fold the paper at the bottom of his cage, and he had a nice sing song. I sited his (awful) cage next to Frankie’s and let them case each other out. Frankie was fascinated, rather than sit with me she’d sit like a sentinel on Bill’s cage, eventually getting in there with him largely to steal his food. This process lasted a few weeks but eventually they both decided to ‘move in’ together in Frankie’s much nicer cage – perfect solution!

Rook meanwhile was really only interested in human interaction – which is good as he had a much more powerful beak than the tiels! His story was to end in tragedy too though, sadly. After showing symptoms of ill-health I took him straight to the avian vet, tests revealed not very much, but armed with formula I tried to build his strength and get him well. I’d thought we’d had a good day, I was feeding him a pomegranate seed before bed time (his favourite snack), he said ‘Whatcha got?’ – he’d hardly been talking whilst ill – but alas, I found him on the bottom of the cage the next morning.

That hit me hard. He should’ve had a lifespan sufficient so that we could’ve retired together as a pair of grumpy old men. He was so much fun, a lovely little soul who adored my girlfriend as much as me – he was a really big loss. Foolishly I went to work that day, It was my introduction to Quaker parrots – my first love will always be the peaceful souls that cockatiels are, but it’s hard not to be intoxicated by the agents of chaos that are Quaker parrots.

My logic-chip kicked in at this point – I had two older tiels, Frankie had had considerable veterinary issues – including a hysterectomy – I used to joke she was probably the most expensive cockatiel in the world with her ongoing veterinary care. Bill I knew less about his history but he’d not got the best diet and whilst I improved it it was with limited success – it was likely they’d both have a few years left max so I’d see that out and then perhaps take a break from the emotional rollercoaster of caring for these amazing creatures.

A year or so later Bill started to show swelling, I took him to the vet who had to sedate him to x-ray him – she found fluids in his abdomen which she was able to drain, but it also showed his internal organs weren’t in great shape. Bill came home much more comfortable, but needed a follow-up appointment for further tests, and unfortunately the gentle little man didn’t pull through the sedation this time, he passed away on the table.

I took him home so that Frankie could see what happened – conscious that she never got to see what happened to Phoebe, unlike with Lloyd and Rook. I like to think, perhaps foolishly, it helped her to realise what had happened. I resolved to myself that at this point it would be Frankie and me now, the dice-roll of introducing another bird too open to going wrong, and also Frankie had ongoing medical issues (she was basically on the pill to suppress egg production since she only had half a reproductive system!).

But of course, as mentioned above, I don’t thrive at planning or goal-setting! We are in the midst of lockdown thanks to Covid-19 – the Facebook page that I’d set up for Rook initially, which had been taken over by Frankie and Bill, received a message from a lady who had – guess what – a Quaker parrot, powder-blue no less, who needed a home. Sonic was bonded to her husband who was about to be away on tour with the armed forces and she felt it wasn’t fair, and having seen Rook’s shenanigans she thought she’d found the perfect home.

I was reticent, then I saw the pictures and videos. Sonic was about one and a half, the age Rook was when he passed away roughly – I arranged a not inconsiderable road trip to see him (okay, her – I’ve since had her sex-tested!) probably flouting the rules at the time for necessary travel. Sonic is also a delight, tame as you like – we got on brilliantly from the off. Obviously she came home with me, much to Frankie’s chagrin (you could almost see the look on her face: “Why have you brought another one of those back with you?”

Sonic looks just like Rook, she has a little more grey in her wings. She’s just as tame and can also talk, when she first arrive she used to enjoy throwing toys on the floor and laughing – she doesn’t laugh so much any more, and unlike Rook is a reluctant talker. She has a huge vocabulary, but you only hear her talking either when she’s in her cage chilling out, or if we take a shower together. She’s much more affectionate and loves to be petted – whereas Rook was a real monster for playing.

This was one of the prompts to get her DNA tested for sex – I wondered if these quite strikingly different personality traits meant she was female. I was right! It doesn’t make any difference to me, but it’s good to know to watch out for issues like egg-binding. Just like Rook, Sonic didn’t really bother with Frankie and vice versa – I always supervised them when out together and gave Frankie extra time out without the blue menace and things worked well.

Frankie had started to have seizures which was alarming, back to the vet we went, he couldn’t really find a cause but as she visited fairly often for her contraceptive shots, the vet agreed to monitor her. The seizures gradually became more frequent and severe, including instances of coughing up blood – Frankie had showed me numerous times she had a fierce will to live and I’d made a tacit agreement with her that as long as that was the case I’d do everything I could to deal with her health issues.

Unfortunately – still in lockdown – it was becoming so bad, with lockdown easing slightly I was terrified she’d have a particularly bad episode whilst I was at work or out and basically drown to death. I took the desperately difficult call to have her put to sleep at the vet – 20 years of companionship, the soul that kept me sane in alone in lockdown before Sonic arrived. It was a hard decision. I still think it was the right decision. My only regret is that because of the pandemic legislation at the time I wasn’t permitted to be with her at the end, I had to hand her over to a vet in a car park.

Since Sonic showed no real interest in Frankie I didn’t ask to bring her home, instead asked them to arrange a cremation (yes, I do have a little birdy mausoleum of their ashes, I’m that person!). Sonic I suspect was probably happy to have me just to herself, and to be honest, whilst I was reticent to take on another bird when contemplating the demise of my cockatiels, given the timing during the pandemic, having Sonic around really saved me from myself – and she continues to thrive. She’s around five years old now and very well settled in.

She’s very much bonded to me – unsurprisingly, we were stuck together in a house alone during a pandemic! But she’s warmed to my girlfriend who now lives with us, Definitely the case of a happy accident – I might not have initially been looking for Quaker parrots in my life, but I’m sure glad that they arrived. They’re little bipolar bundles of affection, playfulness, song, fun.- and occasional violence! They’re not to be taken lightly, they demand a lot of attention and time – but if you provide that, they’re also so rewarding!