Precarious

Earlier this year, Thomas and I competed in a race in which age group awards were hand-made and hand-painted mugs.  To our surprise, both of us won a mug!  This has also created much laughter in our house, as my mug was larger (I was in the top 3 overall females and he was in top 3 for males in his age group), so he'll joke about just being a little thirsty or needing a tiny drink of water.  It's all in good fun, as this is definitely the nicest prize either of us has won in a race.

He keeps his mug out on the counter so he remembers to drink from it daily.  Thus far, it's pretty much been ignored by the parrots.  Except one time, when Thomas left it close to the edge and Stella threw it to the ground in a fit -- luckily no damage occurred!  Since then, he's remembered to push it far back from the edge.

Over the weekend, I saw Max trying to perch on it.  I warned her she was too heavy and she'd tip over, but she succeeded, even resting on one foot!

I'm still surprised it could support her weight.

Nature weekend

Thanks again for all of your support -- it means a lot.  We are still missing Brian immensely.  I buried him on Friday after work.  I scratched his head -- something he never let me do when he was alive -- and thought about the good times we had together.  My tears fell on him, and I was thinking how wonderful it would be if they had some sort of magical power that could restore him to life.  Of course, nothing happened, but I pulled out some of his lovely blue feathers and have them safe in a drawer.  He's now resting in the back yard, along with the rest of the budgies who've left us over the years.  Lenny, Ethel, Jeff Saturday, and Daphne.

Until this point in the day, I had not cried and was able to look back at pictures and videos of him fondly.  I think about him almost constantly, but it makes me happy to remember how wonderful he was and how lucky we were to have as much time with him as we did.  I know I shouldn't but I keep thinking of different "what ifs" -- it's amazing to think how decisions made nearly a decade earlier were ultimately instrumental in what happened.  For example, if I'd taken a different job in 2002, I probably wouldn't have been home until much later, sparing his life.  Or, if thugs hadn't broken into our house in 2005, we wouldn't have moved, which means we wouldn't have had room for Rocky (though we would have had room for Brian), and he'd still be alive.  It's just interesting how seemingly unrelated events can conspire against me.

We decided to try to spend much of the weekend in nature, as that always helps to raise our spirits.  We went to one of Thomas's favorite places, where there are lots of natural springs.  It was peaceful:

Some of the springs:

And we even saw a few cedar waxwings, Thomas's favorite wild bird:

We both felt much better.  Thomas is adamant that we can't add any more birds to our house.  Maybe when we move and the set up is different.  We have no plans to move.  I'm not sure if he'll still feel this way once he can process more of his grief.  In any way, it's way too early for us to think about adding anyone else.  Of course, I had three different people ask me if we'd take their special-needs birds since Brian died.  I had to turn them all down.

I had figured that our bird-bath activity would mostly be done for the year (it certainly will be soon once we turn off the outside water and close down the bird bath for the year) so it was a pleasant surprise to see a dark-eyed junco bathing this morning:

We'll definitely get out hiking some more this holiday weekend.  Nature really helps heal us.

Window

Look where I found Calypso earlier this week, gazing out the window:

Consoling

Thomas is taking the loss of Brian particularly hard. He told me today that when we grocery shop, we can cut down on our bread purchase as he doesn't think he can eat toast again as that was something he shared with Brian every morning and it would make him too sad.  He's been extremely morose the past few days, and I hope that he can work through his grief.

The still-living parrots are doing their best to help him.  They can sense his sadness and have been gathering around him more than usual.  A few scenes from last night:

I broached the subject of getting another budgie someday (months or years in the future); showing him some safer cages that I found online yesterday.  It may have been too soon.  He said that he considers this house to be a budgie death trap and that no more parrots can enter this house.  It's going to be a tough few weeks until we can find a new sense of normalcy.

I've got Basil's foot

Basil frequently says "I've got your foot" and I've known from talking to his owners that he'll hold on to their foot while saying this. He hadn't felt comfortable enough with us to do this; in fact, when I'd touch his feet (when he was hanging on to the cage bars), he'd scramble back down to the safety of his interior perches.

Until recently. Last week, he put his leg through his cage bars and grasped for my finger as he said "I've got your foot!" We stayed for several minutes like this. Here he is, holding on to Thomas's finger:

And this has become our new nightly routine:

Basil talks at night

I took this video last week, before the dark cloud of gloom descended on our house. For some reason, I can only upload one video per post when I upload from home (I can do multiple videos when I upload from work) so these videos will have to be in two posts.

Basil gets very talkative at night. The video is very dark since it's bedtime!

Thank you

Thank you to everyone for your kind and supportive comments about Brian.  It is really helpful.  When I posted what happened, I worried about receiving mean comments that would only make me feel worse (if that's even possible) -- you guys are the best.

I miss him so much!  He was such a special soul and I wish I would have had him for many more years, but I know I need to treasure the time I had with him.  I'm happy that I have so many photos and videos to remember him by.  I'll post some more in the future, when I'm feeling up to it.

I spent much of yesterday sobbing, so far today it's only been tears leaking out.  Luckily I have a very understanding boss and no customer contact!  I was even able to sleep through the night (after being unable to sleep Monday night), though most my dreams were about Brian.

I think one of the things that pains me the most is that I thought I had taken every precaution.  I've relived the experience hundreds of times in my head, and there's nothing that I would have done differently under the same circumstances. 

It's made me question whether I should ever own another budgie.  I can't imagine the rest of my life in a budgie-less existence, though I'm certainly not ready to add another one at this point.  The woman who runs the rescue suggested that I look into acrylic cages or other ways of adding an additional safety layer.  This is something I will have to look into in due time.  Right now it's still too raw.

Max and (surprisingly) Basil were very empathetic yesterday as I was changing their foods and waters in the morning.  Max would not leave my side and made frequent kissing sounds.  Basil kept softly repeating, "I love you Basil" which is what I tell him when I'm trying to comfort him.  They could tell something was wrong and were trying to cheer me up.

Anyway, I will try to get back to regular posting tomorrow.  Thanks again for your compassion -- it means a lot, more than I can express.

RIP, Brian

Little Brian died tonight.  I am just devastated. When we took him in last December, we thought we'd have a couple of months with him until his tumor took his life.  We ended up having nearly 11 months with Brian.  It wasn't enough, and it wasn't his tumor that took his life.

I came home from work a bit early today as I wanted to see the parrots.  I'd let the larger parrots out of their cages, but kept Brian inside his for safety.  I was on the far side of the room, away from his cage, when Rocky walked in to the kitchen.  He started to climb up Brian's cage.  I made my way, with a stick, to remove Rocky from Brian's cage.  I still don't know how it happened so quickly, but a split second before I arrived, Rocky bit Brian's beak off, through his cage bars.

I rushed Brian to the vet, and was told that there was nothing that could be done.  With larger parrots, they can learn to eat and survive without their upper beak, but that's not the case for budgies.  My choices were to let him slowly starve to death, or euthanize.  I chose the latter.  I still can't believe this happened.

I am killing myself with what ifs -- what if I'd not come home from work early, had done yoga when I got home, not let the larger parrots out of their cages, gotten to Brian's cage one second earlier, taken Brian out and had him on my shoulder, etc.  He'd still be alive.

I did everything I could to provide him with the best life possible, and I turned out to be his worst enemy.  I miss him so much already.  It was so quiet tonight without his cheerful chatter.  I can never own another budgie again, due to the way I failed Brian.  I don't even think I deserve to own any of my parrots, but they are stuck with me.  How could this happen?

I am so sorry, Brian.  We loved you so much and you deserved better.  I will never be able to forgive myself.

Pretty baby

I took this video last week of Beeps.  He was quite excited, doing his special whistle and saying "pretty baby!" and I wanted to get it on video.  When he saw the camera, he got even more excited and started doing his head snaking and marching around.  Had I continued much longer, I would have risked a bite.

He usually does the whistle that I do here, then follows with "pretty baby!" but the camera alters his behavior.  I did the whistle, trying to get him to end with "pretty baby!" -- this worked twice while I filmed, but usually has a much better success rate.  The camera really does trigger him!

As soon as I removed the camera from his sight, he stopped his menacing behavior.

Not just cookies

Yesterday, as part of my breakfast, I was eating an apple with peanut butter.  I had put the requisite ingredients (can I call them ingredients if there's only two?) on the counter.  It came as no surprise what happened next.  Max loves peanut butter and Stella loves apples.  Curiously, Stella does not like peanut butter and Max does not like apples.

 Even though Stella does not like peanut butter, when she saw Max beaking the jar, she had to join in:

But she quickly moved on to my apple!  I hadn't even started to cut it up yet.

At the kitchen table, I was eating my breakfast while minding my own business, when Stella flew over, grabbed a piece of my apple and helped herself:

I was just reading in a book yesterday about studies showing that wild animals prefer to forage, even when food is readily accessible to them.  That's certainly true for my greys.