Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Sad Times, but New Beginnings

On Tuesday last week (26th August) we sadly lost our cockatiel "Chicken". It was very unexpected and hit DP and I like a tonne of bricks. She was only just over 4 years old, and didn't show any signs of being sick, (although that is not uncommon with birds) but on Tuesday morning when I went to say good morning to them she was on the bottom of the cage, and had passed away.

It was a very teary Tuesday, and that afternoon we had a burial in the garden with a Grevillia (Flora Mason) planted on top of her, and more tears were shed, finding it hard to believe that she would not be around anymore with her funny little antics for us to laugh at and enjoy. Funny how such a small little animal could have such a big personality and leave such a big hole in our hearts and lives. Our other cockatiel, Spooki was definitely missing her, each time we took her out of her cage she would look around to where Chicken's cage was and screech out for her and not get any response, and kept looking around to try to fly to where she might be.

Slowly the teary moments got less and we started to think and talk about getting another cockatiel, although, we knew we could never find a replacement for Chicken, there would only ever be one Chicken.

On Friday at lunch time I decided to duck into the shop that I got Spooki from back in March to just see what they had, and they had two aviaries of cockatiels. I stood there and watched them for at least 20 minutes, just looking at the different colours of them and watching their antics. I moved to the other aviary and straight away a male started to tap the perch with his beak and do a little strutting walk and then started to whistle at me, he had me laughing at him with his strange whistle song. So I was thinking about taking him home but I really wanted the next cockatiel we got to be a joint decision between DP and I, so after work we went down to the store together and another one, which I hadn't even noticed when I was there, did a wolf whistle and then broke into other whistles, we watched them for a while and just fell in love with this little guy who sung to both of us, and seemed to have a very gentle nature to him. And so we took him home.

He is a whiteface cinnamon, meaning that he doesn't have the usual orange or yellow markings, and the parts that are grey are more of a fawn colour, being a whiteface he should have been $40 but the guy at the store said he would give him to us for $10 seeing as though he had been picked on and had some of his head feathers pulled out, so bargain. He also said that he is probably around 7 months old, so a bit older than what we had hoped for but with a bit of patience and persistence I'm sure he will become part of our family.

Getting weighed, 64g, see the bald patch on his head.

He is already letting us handle him without biting hard, and will most of the time step up onto your finger or hand, apart from when we have to play chasey around the kitchen floor, inlcuding under the kitcken table LOL. The first couple of days that he was home (over the weekend) he was very sleepy which is understandable after the trauma of being caught in the aviary, and taken to a new home, with new sounds and surroundings, I know I wouldn't have a restful sleep in those circumstances. But he is much more alert and active now.

Together with Spooki on the kitchen chair.

They both seem to like each other, although they have separate cages they will quite often find the corner nearest each others cage and sit there. When I take them outside if I don't take them out or bring them in together (not an easy task with two cages) they will screech for each other until they are back in the same room and then will squeak to each other. He hasnt whistled for us like he did in the shop but I am sure with time he will share his songs with us.

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