In Memoriam

Murderess

Vinnie & Shakira in Happier Times

It has taken several weeks for me to compose myself to write this. I can't believe how attached I became to a damn parakeet. Vinnie, my baby girl, is gone. The appropriately called bitch in the above photo got her. Baby's baby Tallula crept into the aviary when the house was asleep and did her in. There was nothing left but scattered feathers on the living room floor.

Vinnie was such a tough little thing. I thought if there was ever a battle between the dog and the bird the dog would lose-- even though, at 50 pounds, Lula outweighed my budgie by a few ounces less than 50 pounds.

In her brief and violently abbreviated life Vinnie had demolished a pretty little wooden bird house, stripped several hibiscus plants and chewed entire pots of wandering jew to ragged clumps. The purple whatnot in the monkey planter? Demolished. She took apart a wicker chair.  She was destructive and quiet and beady eyed and cunning...she could wriggle through the bars of her bird cage.

But it was night and she was sleeping...


Somehow Shakira, my boy, survived. Since Vinnie passed he's not been doing much singing, just lethargically pecking at his own feathers and -- most pathetically --- feeding his mirror. While I sadly pecked at my keyboard.

My Darling Vinnie

If you know nothing about bird behavior, which I didn't until I got this pair (because what's an aviary without birds?) what appears to be much heavy necking is them feeding each other More specifically, throwing up their seed and sticking it in each others mouths or beaks or craws or whatever you call their mouthal openings. This is what (so the internets tell me) birdy mama's do with their baby's. As adults they do it to each other for comfort.

With no Vinnie to feed, Shakira took to his mirror, cooing and chucking and attempting to....

Pathetic.

But I wasn't ready to introduce another bird until today. When I woke him this morning, I just sensed it was right. He and I were not doing the bonding I imagined -- thinking maybe now (boy birds being more sociable than girl birds) he'd maybe do more than yawn at me. He'd come and shit on my shoulder as I worked, screaming in my ear. But no.

So I cleaned up the old cage, so there'd be a buffer between the birds Just In Case, and the Prince and I went off to Petco or Pet Smart or whatever it's called and... there was one in the bunch that eyed me. Clearly watched me watching him. And he seemed particularly sharp, in a Vinnie kind of way.

He's clearly a he, a bit of blue across his nostrils or nose holes (there are limits to my knowledge of budgie anatomy) but females have brown or tan nose bits.  And much like babies who are frequently born with blue eyes that turn brown, there's no telling the sex of a young parakeet before they're six or eight months (or something like that). This is why, to cut to the chase,  Shakira is Shakira and my girl was called Vinnie.


The new boy is prettier than Vinnie, who was notably homely. He has a green body and bright yellow wings and a much sweeter voice than Shakira, who's a little pitchy, as they say.

New Bird & Shakira

 
Shakira is happy again. He's hardly shut up since we got home with whatsisname several hours ago. He flitted right over and into new bird's cage and there's been a  good deal of posturing and pointing out, most clearly, what is his -- My cage My water My perch My crispy honey flavored log 'o seed (which I bought him after Vinnie passed and he didn't look at once until now).

 And once all that was established he vomited most affectionately into new bird's mouth.