In which we fail fostering (again)...

This will probably not come as a surprise to some of you out there, but we have decided that we can't live without Kika.

The reason I didn't post on Monday is that I had to bring Kika to the rescue facility to meet her potential new owner. I felt sick, my emotions were all over the place, and I couldn't come up with words to express how I was feeling.

When we agreed to take her in, we knew that there was someone interested in her and that this most likely would be very short term (less than 2 weeks). She just couldn't handle it at the rescue and we wanted to stop further mutilation. Based on the description of her by her previous owners and her behavior at the center, we expected a scared, difficult grey. What we found was completely the opposite.

We told ourselves we couldn't fall in love with her, but we couldn't help ourselves.

She started making sad, mournful noises (grey owners will know what I'm talking about) the moment I took her toys out of her cage so that she would have something familiar if she was adopted. These continued the entire drive, as I fought back tears. It was so hard leaving her there.

A couple of hours later, Thomas called me, himself almost in tears, and asked whether there was any way we could adopt her. I called up to the facility and was told that if the person looking at her didn't want to adopt her, we could have her, but we would have to wait and see.

Luckily for us, Kika was still available at the end of the day! She made happy noises the entire car ride back home. I'm sure she was just picking up on my emotions, but it's amazing how sensitive these creatures are.

We got home much later than usual, so Thomas was cooking dinner. He told me that all of the parrots were mad at me for possibly sending one of them away and they were worried that they might be next. Of course he was just kidding!

As was the case before, she is adapting quite well to our house. Max hasn't tried to buzz her in almost a week. She gets along with the caiques, and the parrots are able to share stands without problems.

Kika must have lived in a technologically advanced house (at least compared to us) as she has regaled us with her repertoire of at least 5 different phone rings. She also makes normal grey sounds that I love -- clicks, clucks, beeps, whistles, etc. She and Max make identical sounds, to the point where it's impossible for me to tell which grey is making the noise.

Although we weren't looking to add another bird to our house, I think she's a good fit and will enjoy life with us. But she is absolutely the last until we move as there is no more space in the living room.