# In which the Mango discovers that O'Brien the budgie is a girl... **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 24, 2005, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-the-mango-discovers-that-obrien-the-budgie-is-a-girl/286461 "2005-01-24T20:33:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Asbestos_Mango)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2005, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-the-mango-discovers-that-obrien-the-budgie-is-a-girl/286461/1 "2005-01-24T20:33:08Z")
Yep, I thought she was a he, but it turns out he’s a she. Last week, my mom bought a cockatiel and a new toy for O’Brien. It’s a little plastic birdhouse with a little plastic bird face on a spring. O’Brien liked the toy. She liked is so much that a few days ago we found the bird sitting on top of the cage, happily pecking at the toy… with her little backside backed up against the folded cage cover, little tailfeathers in the air, masturbating like… whatever it is birds masturbate like. I know from prior experience with birds that male birds masturbate by getting on top of the preferred… object and humping it, and the bird book I have says that females masturbate by backing up against things, raising their little tailfeathers and… O’Brien has also been cooing, preening, soliciting feeding and otherwise coming on to the only available male bird. The only available male bird is my Senegal parrot, Shamus, who is about 2-3 years away from reaching sexual maturity. Shamus tolerates O’Brien’s advances up to a point (he does enjoy the preening part) but having a bird who’s about an eighth his body weight and maybe a fifth his size wanting things he’s too young to be able to figure out to do, even assuming that all of the parts would fit, is a bit too weird for him. I wonder what life in the Mango household will be like when Maureen the cockatiel reaches sexual maturity (which should be within the next six months or so, she already has her adult coloring). Then Shamus will have two horny females which he’s both too young and too large to mate with trying to seduce him. Poor little guy. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2005, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-the-mango-discovers-that-obrien-the-budgie-is-a-girl/286461/2 "2005-01-24T21:06:28Z")
Whoever came up with the phrase “The birds and the bees” must have been really kinky. One time I went with a friend to his friend’s house. She had a parakeet she allowed out of the cage to fly around the house. We were sitting at her kitchen table shooting the breeze, when the bird jumps up and lands. I hand my hand on the table, and my pinky sticking up. The bird jumps on my hand and starts nibbling my pinky. “He has a thing for sharp objects,” says our hostess. The bird then start spinning around my pinky, beak still perched on the nail. “Oh he really likes you!” After about aminute of this, he jumps off and drags his wing across the table. “Now he’s going to act like he’s got abroken wing,” mused our hostess. He left a little wet spot on my hand. I’m not going to speculate what it was. ---
**Author:** ![emekthian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecae2f/32.png) [@emekthian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emekthian)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-the-mango-discovers-that-obrien-the-budgie-is-a-girl/286461/3 "2005-01-25T05:40:07Z")
I had no idea that birds masturbated. ---
**Author:** ![Fritz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c57346/32.png) [@Fritz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fritz)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-the-mango-discovers-that-obrien-the-budgie-is-a-girl/286461/4 "2005-01-25T05:58:40Z")
I had a cockatiel that we named “Sonny”… we assumed it was a male bird for years. One day “Sonny” laid an egg… We renamed her “Sunny”… ---
**Author:** ![The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Asbestos_Mango)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-the-mango-discovers-that-obrien-the-budgie-is-a-girl/286461/5 "2005-01-25T23:22:55Z")
> [@emekthian](#): > > I had no idea that birds masturbated. And with that brief sentence, another Doper’s innocence is lost. I feel like I’ve accomplished something important. I’m not sure what it is. ---
**Author:** ![Madd\_Maxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Madd\_Maxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Madd_Maxx)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-the-mango-discovers-that-obrien-the-budgie-is-a-girl/286461/6 "2005-01-25T23:55:37Z")
> [@The Asbestos Mango](#): > > with her little backside backed up against the folded cage cover, little tailfeathers in the air, masturbating like… whatever it is birds masturbate like. I believe the correct phrase is “Masterbating like a motherfuck.” ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-the-mango-discovers-that-obrien-the-budgie-is-a-girl/286461/7 "2005-01-26T00:03:27Z")
When we bought our second cockatiel, the store clerk assured us that she was a girl, so we named her “Lucy” after my grandmother. As “she” matured and we came to know more about birds, we realized that Lucy was of the boy persuasion. Oh well, we already had come to know her as “she”, and since she shared a cage with Oliver, who was also definitely a boy, we wouldn’t have to worry about any shenanigans. So she remained a girly-type bird to us; she kept her name and we continued to use feminine pronouns to refer to her. We didn’t think she’d mind, being a bird and all. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-the-mango-discovers-that-obrien-the-budgie-is-a-girl/286461/8 "2005-01-26T01:01:49Z")
> [@emekthian](#): > > I had no idea that birds masturbated. If you’d like to lose a little more innocence, please read [this column by sex advice guru Dan Savage](http://www.thestranger.com/2004-03-18/savage.html). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Asbestos_Mango)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-the-mango-discovers-that-obrien-the-budgie-is-a-girl/286461/9 "2005-01-26T03:14:23Z")
Um, does anyone have a spare cup of Brain Bleach? I seem to be fresh out… ---
**Author:** ![Odinoneeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/97f17d/32.png) [@Odinoneeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odinoneeye)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-which-the-mango-discovers-that-obrien-the-budgie-is-a-girl/286461/10 "2005-01-26T04:10:05Z")
We used to have a very fuzzy cat named Bailey. We sent her into the vet to be spayed. The vet called and said he couldn’t find her ovaries and wondered if she had been spayed already. My wife called the old owner and the answer was no. She called back and the vet had the answer. He needed to be neutered. All that fuzz kept everything hidden.