Birds of a Feather

We own two budgies. We rescued them from a pet store where they had been callously and unceremoniously left by people who were moving away and simply didn’t want them anymore. My wife found them and suggested we take them. Why not? Our cat was old and unthreatening. Even in his prime he was no hunter. So we went and picked up the birds.

They came with a small cage – too small for two birds. They’d spent their whole lives in this cage. The green one was six years old and the blue one was two. Now they are eight and four. We got them a bigger cage filled with various perches and platforms and foraging options. The woman at the bird store furnished it as though she were moving in herself. Her running commentary was thinly disguised. When she said, “And they will want a swing big enough for both of them,” what she really meant was: “I want a swing. I want a platform. I want wings.”

The bird store is located conveniently beneath the birds-only veterinary clinic where a tired, fifty-something woman with a heavy moustache cares for birds of all types. The store owner made it clear that the vet is one of the best, looking at the ceiling above which the clinic operates, “…but I doubt she knows more about birds than I do. We’ve had our arguments, and let’s just say we agree to disagree.”

Bird owners are a funny bunch, I thought. Funny weird, not funny ha-ha. As if to prove my point a woman with bird’s nest hair and wild eyes, her body draped with scarves and beads, came into the store. A regular. We knew she would come. She had to. These are the people who form relationships with African Grey parrots that last decades. They can’t ever leave their bird because parrots mate for life and they reject all others in favor of their chosen mate. Spouses do not fare well in three-way human-human-bird relationships. The bird always wins. The scarves, the beads, the wild hair… These are proof of that victory.

While our cage was being given the Martha Stewart treatment, our birds were being given a checkup at the clinic upstairs. We went up to learn whether our birds are female. “Probably,” said the vet. Budgies are devilishly difficult to pigeon-hole, gender-wise.

Budgies also require twelve hours of sleep every night. Our birds weren’t getting anywhere near that. “They’re exhausted,” sighed the vet, her moustache shaved to exactly the mid-point of her lip. She seemed exhausted when she said this. She looked exhausted. That moustache looked exhausted. My wife and I looked at each other. Having birds is thrilling.

How can birds get twelve hours of sleep in the wild? It’s called “the wild” for a reason. Certainly not because it’s a great place to zonk out for twelve hours at a time. Budgies are prey animals. They exist on the lowest links of the food chain. Their whole lives are spent being furtive and hyper-alert. Everything frightens them, including all other birds who share their habitat. How can any animal that is so permanently freaked out sleep for twelve whole hours?

Once we started throwing the blanket over the cage for twelve hours and improved their diet, the birds stopped being exhausted. Now they chirp and flutter their tails and preen and flap their wings (not clipped) and occasionally come out of their cage for awkward, clumsy flights that usually end in an abrupt thud. They are terrible at being birds.

But they make great pets. No, that’s not true. They are our prisoners, and they seem to know this. We leave the cage open all day and the rare times they come out for a fly they head toward the windows and screen doors. These are not flights of fancy. They are recon missions. They are gathering intel for their escape.

Budgies are said to be smart. Smart as a one-year-old human child. One year old children are not smart. Give a one-year-old child a problem to solve and they will either try to eat it, or they will poop and then cry, just like a budgie would. We shouldn’t say budgies are smart like one year old children. We should say one year old children are as dumb as budgies.

I want to open the window and let them escape. It’s what they want, after all. A cage is the cruelest place for an animal that possesses the gift of flight. We should give them the gift of certain death, because the few moments preceding that death would at least be a life.

I try talking to them. My wife and I ask them questions and then fill in the blanks for them. We are their guardians, after all. We do the paperwork. We pay their bills.

Lately I have begun asking different questions. “Do you care about us? Where is this relationship going?” They reply with a blankness that I can’t fill in. We own them. We rescued them. And they couldn’t care less.