Stalking the wily zebra finch

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My husband woke me up this afternoon. “Marli, get up. It’s important.” The sense of urgency in his voice made me sit bolt upright in bed.

“What’s the matter?”
“The bird’s loose.”

I threw on a robe and followed him into the living room. The bird cage sat on the end table; the female beeper, Bacall, huddled forlorn on her perch. Bogie the boy beeper was nowhere in sight.

My husband said, “Last time I saw him he was over there by the kitchen window. He keeps working his way around to the back door. I’ve been trying to catch him all day.” He brandished a sieve and continued. “He’s too fast for me, and it’s starting to get dark, we need to catch him before he goes to roost somewhere.”

I laid a trap. Placing the bird cage with the lonely Bacall on the floor by the back door, I put a spray of millet seed down in front of it, hoping Bogie would get hungry and creep out to eat. As the light started to grow dim, my husband and I sat in the living room and waited. Bacall pecked at her food dish, pausing every now and then to give voice to a sad beep.

“I hear him every now and then,” my husband whispered. “They’ve been beeping back and forth…shh! Listen!”

Beep beep beep…from the kitchen. The sun had set by this time; I moved my trap to the kitchen and decided to take a shower, hoping that by the time I got done he would show himself.

I emerged from the bathroom to find my husband and Bogie staring each other down from opposite ends of the couch, while from her cage Bacall beeped the theme from “High Noon” like a tiny feathered midi file. “Try to keep his attention!” I ordered as I grabbed a tea towel and started sneaking closer.

“It’s not like he has a blind spot, you know!” said my husband as Bogie turned his baleful stare on me. He took off and flew thrice widdershins around my head before landing back in the same place. I crept a few steps closer. Bogie, realizing that his attempt to place a birdie voodoo curse on me had failed, took off again. Around the living room, into the kitchen, down the hallway, back out again, and he landed on the dining room table, which is currently piled high with miniature gaming figurines, paints, cups, towels, and whatnot.

He made the crucial error of landing behind a wadded up towel on the edge of the table. Crouching down, I was able to work my way right up to the table before rising like an avenging goddess and tossing my tea towel over the top of him.

“Did you get him? Did you get him?” said my husband.
“I think so,” I said, as I gingerly felt all the lumps under the tea towel, trying to find one that was warm. “Ah. Yep. Here he is.”

Gently I picked him up under the tea towel and placed him back in his cage. “So, you thought you vould get avay?” I said in my best evil Nazi voice. He glared at me with such burning hatred it will probably be the last image I recall on my deathbed, then turned his back on me. Bacall beeped happily and tried to groom his feathers; he pecked her on the head.

Security will have to be tightened considerably. I shudder to think what that bird might have been capable of if my husband and his sieve hadn’t been awake and guarding the house.

2

Good story for a dark, rainy day! I miss my Nellie, a cockatiel with a penchant for escaping and flying laps around the living room!

3

We have Zahzoo the African Grey parrot because he would get loose. It is reported that after picking the lock on his cage, he would swell up, scream and growl like a dog, then chase his owner, his owner’s roommate, and 2 dogs from room to room until he got hungry and climbed back into his cage, when a brave volunteer would have to slam the cage shut while Zazhoo was pigging down.
My husband and I were called over to determine if the bird could be rehabilitated. So we watched it hang out in the cage. We got bored. So we wanted to let it out, and the owner of the bird said “Okay, good luck”, left the room and shut the door.
The bird clambered out and began attacking the curtains. We were okay with that because the curtains were ugly and I, too, had felt an urge to attack them. Zahzoo then creeped his way down to the floor, swelled up, growled, and charged at my husband. African grey parrots are similar in size, shape and combat ability to a large potato. On the floor, they are actually less frightening then a frozen bagel of equal mass.
My husband burst out laughing, which stopped the bird like it had hit a glass door. It shuffled off behind the couch and would not come out for 15 minutes.
At that point I realized that we now owned yet another “special needs” parrot.

4

He’s still mad at me. Bacall’s been trying to engage him in play, shaking his bell at him (she never plays with his bell) and he’ll play with it until I walk by the cage. Then he stops and glares at me.

That is hilarious. Birds are so much fun. I used to work behind the counter at a truck stop and a family asked me to watch their parrot while they went over to the restaurant to eat. Every time I walked by his cage he wolf-whistled at me. I was feeling pretty good about myself by the time the family got done with their meal. :cool:

5

Ha ha! I like funny bird stories.

My grandpa told me once about how he woke up one night feeling something tickly on his chest. He turned on the bedside light and there were two starlings sitting on his chest, staring at him. My grandpa got up, and the birds flipped out and started flying around. He went to get his fishing net to try to catch them, and as he came down the hall three more birds burst into view.

Turns out there was a hole somewhere in the chimney and somehow a family of starlings had figured out how to get inside to escape the cold night. So my grandpa chased them with the net. They all flew into the biggest nearby area, the kitchen, and flew around shitting. The more panicked they got, the more they shit. Most of the droppings, as fate would have it, landed on the velvet seat covers of the dining room chairs. He eventually managed to catch them and toss them back outside, and plugged the chimney up the next day.

To this day, there’s still faint white stains on those chairs…:smiley: