The Third Time Trickle Flew Away

For some reason, I just didn’t think Trickle was gone for good this time, even after learning he’d been out in the world for over an hour. I arrived home from work when my husband told me a bird got out while he was bringing in the salt for the softener.  He had the door propped open and Trickle just flew right out. The timing was just weirdly right for this mishap. Trickle had flown up from the basement which happens very rarely. Our daughter had retrieved him on her finger (Remember, he’s the tamest) and was carrying him back to his cage when Bret walked in with two salt bags. This spooked Trickle and he flew right out the open door and through the garage.

Once receiving this news, I dropped my purse and lunch bag on the garage floor and turned around to go right back out. I started walking around the neighborhood and whistling. It was another unusually warm March day that sometimes occurs in the Chicago area. The days were getting longer. The sun was still above the horizon and it seemed every kid in the neighborhood was outdoors contributing to the noise level. My first thought was that Trickle flew to the edge of the neighborhood over the open farm fields to the east. I ventured out a ways before returning to the neighborhood south of our house. I kept walking and whistling, but soon started thinking the bird had flown far, far away and maybe I should just go home and start dinner.

Then it happened. About three blocks from home, I heard a loud, short whistle. I looked to the sky and spotted him flying above the houses as if he’d done it every day. He must have been resting while I was looking because he was so loud I would have surely heard him earlier. I ran toward the area in which he was flying, but it kept changing and I kept running in different directions. People were out and about and I wondered if they were noticing this 40 something year-old woman dressed in jeans and a black vinyl jacket, looking to the sky, running one way and then the other while whistling and calling “Trickle! Trickle!” I put my arm out for him to land on, but he just kept flying and whistling, flying and whistling. I was nobody to that bird. I felt truly ignored as he skimmed the air no closer than about ten feet above my head.

This went on for about twenty minutes. I watched him fly large circles around the neighborhood without ever landing. I was hoping he’d get tired and I could just pick him up off the ground as he rested, but he flew and flew. The whistling stopped as quickly as it began. By this time, several neighbors were looking out for him as I walked around more and whistled more. A half hour went by with no sign of him and I became worried. The sun was setting and it would be a cold night or maybe he’d land in a yard where a dog would pounce on him.

After more silence, he was up again. Thank goodness! He flew far to the west, above the trees along a creek that runs about a hundred or so yards out of the neighborhood. I couldn’t believe it. He looked like he’d been doing this all his life. Since he seemed so sure of himself, it became obvious that he wasn’t going to just fly back to us. I asked the husband to bring Trickle’s cage mate, Weston, out in a cage. I had in mind the little traveling cage we use for vet appointments and such, but soon enough, here comes my husband driving his little Ford Focus with Trickle and Weston’s big cage in the front seat. Unfortunately, Weston wasn’t making a peep (probably traumatized by the abrupt change of scenery) and Trickle was nowhere to be seen.  It was getting colder so I suggested he close the car window for now.         

As he slowly drove off, I heard Trickle whistle in the distance. The husband saw him coming our way and opened the window again. Weston heard Trickle too and replied with a loud whistle. The two birds went back and forth, but Trickle kept flying. We quickly took the cage out of the car and set it on the nearest driveway. As the birds continued to call to each other, Trickle slowly circled above, making smaller and smaller circles until he landed on the winter worn lawn about ten feet from the cage. I crouched a little low and approached him with my hand out. Fighting the urge to just grab him, I instead put my two fingers out for him to climb upon. He stepped right up and then I quickly pulled him to my chest to keep him close.

I was about to open the cage door to deposit him in, but stopped myself. If I opened that door, there was a slight chance that Weston would fly out and then we’d have two birds on the loose.  I chose to hold Trickle close in my cupped hands and began walking home, cutting through a yard or two.  He was quiet and still and I was so very grateful for his return.

Of course, the first thing I did when we got home was trim his wings. He didn’t seem any worse for the wear. He didn’t even look tired. We were all so relieved to have him safe and sound. Darkness overtook the neighborhood just after we got the birds settled at home. We had gotten so very lucky once again. I vowed to be more careful because this absolutely could not happen again.

This is the best photo I could find of a tiel in flight, though it appears to be a model. You can see they have excellent flying capabilites with a long, narrow wingspan and long, pointed tail feathers for good maneuverability, not unlike the flight features of some small falcons.

Cockatiel Saves Family from Fire

My neighbor’s cockatiel died a few weeks ago, likely from natural causes that come with being 16 years old. He might have had a fatty liver or an upper respiratory infection, but they hadn’t noticed any change in his eating or anything. It’s a fact that wild animals and many exotics will mask an illness, making it hard to tell if they’re sick. This is an innate survival mechanism, even in some domesticated pets.

So when my neighbor came over to offer me her remaining cockatiel seed and other supplies, we talked a little about her long-time pet bird, Glister. She and her husband had gotten him well before they had kids so he was like their first child together. They named him after a popular Amway product, Glister toothpaste. When she told me how the bird may have saved their family of four from a house fire, I had to share the story.

She and her husband, Tony, and their two young daughters were in bed for the night when they heard Glister whistling and making distress noises. Of course, this was highly unusual so they went down to check. At that point, Tony smelled smoke and knew something was wrong. Glister’s cage happened to be right next to the television at the time and that’s where the smoke was coming from. Apparently, the cat had a urinary problem and had relieved herself right on the surge protector, on the floor, behind the TV. This started a reaction that caused sparks and heat. When Tony discovered the problem, the cords and surge protector were beginning to melt into the carpet which would have surely hastened the fire’s progress.

While it’s not likely the bird was thinking, “There’s a problem here. I have to warn the others,” it is possible that his natural instinct to warn the flock was at work. What’s more likely is the bird was scared and feared for his own life so he naturally gave a call of alarm since he was trapped in a cage and had no other recourse. The result was his successful rescue and the consequent avoidance of a possible disaster.  

The lesson in this is not to ignore something your pet’s doing that seems out of the ordinary or just weird. At least take the time to study the animal and its environment for a minute before passing it off as just one of those odd things that our pets do from time to time. While exotics can be especially hard to figure, some of them do have a way of demanding our attention.

 

When a bird is in immediate distress, he'll squawk, whistle loudly, flap his wings and just carry on until something changes. 

The Second Time Trickle Flew Away

Yes, it happened a second time, but this one was very brief. In warm weather, we occasionally bring the bird cages outside onto the driveway so the birds can get a dose of natural sunlight and vitamin D3. Since then I’ve added daylight type bulbs to our bird room in the basement. These lights have a 5500 Kelvin rating which makes them appropriate for the lighting needs of birds.

I’m not even sure what happened this time. I believe I opened the cage to grab Trickle for some reason. His wings were trimmed so I only expected that he might hop down to the ground and that was it. Before I knew it, both birds were in the air. I immediately ran to follow in the direction they flew. Westin quickly landed on the ground in the back yard, but Trickle continued to fly. Thankfully, the homes in our neighborhood were just a few years old at the time and no fences stood in my way. I cut through the yards behind my house running in my sock feet. I had the bird in sight as he kept going down a street to the right before landing on somebody’s screen door at the front of their house. He was making a lot of noise whistling repeatedly so the homeowners were drawn to the front door which was open. I got there about the same time they did and apologized for the commotion. They were surprised of course, but made sure to mention that I should have my bird’s wings trimmed. “We have two cats,” the man added.

I thanked them and walked home quickly with Trickle to return him to his cage with Westin, who had been picked up by one of the kids. Someone told me after this that cockatiels are known to fly well with trimmed wings. Another lesson learned. I was just glad he hadn’t flown very far this time. Another lucky break. How many would we have left?

The Uncaged Bird

If one thing was drilled into our brains at Moorpark College, it’s that captive animals must have stimulation. Keeping them fed and watered is not enough. They need exercise and something to do, something that excites them. Modern zoo planners know this and do their best to meet the needs of various species while designing their enclosures. Zookeepers know it too and are always searching for ways to motivate their charges. Anytime I see an empty tissue box or a large cardboard tube, I think of my rats. When conscientious dog owners see a wide open field, they might think about how much their dog would love to run through it, right?

It didn’t seem so unnatural to me that my pet bird should be allowed to wander around a little outside his cage. I started doing this with our mynah bird years ago by simply leaving the cage open and letting him come out on his own for an hour or two. Mynahs kind of hop around like crows so it was fun to watch this bird trip-trap around the hard floors. Later, when we had a cockatiel, I opened the cage in hopes he’d climb to the top and just sit there on a perch I’d set up. He did this, but he also wandered further and further before I’d get worried and have to put him back in.

When I delivered medicine one day to the home of a client from the animal hospital, she showed me her bird room where she housed about 20 finches. There were at least six small finch cages on two or three narrow shelves. Each cage had its door open and the birds were flitting around, resting on other cages or jumping in and out. I was in awe. I never thought it could be done with small birds. Their keeper, Kathy, said they all settle in their cages on their own at night. She hung a sheet in the doorway to keep them from flying out, but it served mostly as a psychological barrier to keep them from trying.

I was inspired that day and would from then on have an open door policy with my birds. It was just a matter of conditioning in the beginning. I now open the cage door in the morning and feed the birds in the evening so they’re motivated to return to their cage. It’s important to note that I don’t give my birds an abundance of food. I only give them enough to last the day. This is one way of getting them to eat their healthier pellet food while limiting the amount of seed, but it also motivates them to go back to their cages at night. Only now and then does one give me a hard time about going back in. Sometimes I have to give one extra time or turn a few lights off to get a defiant one to cooperate.

When I get a new finch or a parakeet, it might take a few days for them to learn how it works from watching the other birds. The worst thing I’ve had to do is catch a small bird in a net once or twice and put it in the cage. They usually get it after that. If you’re going to give this a try with your own birds, start by leaving the door open for an hour or two at first. The bird may not even come out, but he’ll start thinking about it and it may be days before he gets up the courage. Just be patient, but also be home and ready to keep an eye on things. Any animal that has freedom could potentially meet with trouble. In my next post, I’ll share some of the calamities we’ve experienced as a result of giving our pets liberty.

Our cockatiel, Weston, experiencing our Open Door Policy. This is not his cage, but an extra one for climbing on and into.

How I Killed My First Cockatiel

If the owner of this first cockatiel ever reads this, I’m in trouble. And if enough people keep reading my blog, they’re going to think I’m a real exotic pet keeping loser. I can’t help it. I feel it’s important for people to know that mistakes will be made. It happens in general life and it happens with raising children and pets, especially exotics whose lives are so much more tenuous than those of dogs or cats. For me, it’s often the primary way to learn. Not that I’ve made major life mistakes, but I tend to take chances that sometimes don’t end well. Enough said.

As I’ve mentioned, working for veterinarians affords some advantages. One client indicated she had a hand-fed baby, gray cockatiel she couldn’t keep. She lived in my hometown of Chicago Heights which I suppose made me feel somewhat akin to her so I agreed to help her out. While I normally honor the previous owner by keeping an animal’s given name, I didn’t do that with this one. She hadn’t had the bird long and was calling it Elmo even though, without the bright orange spots on its cheeks, it looked to be a female. On top of that, I’m of the early Sesame Street era and I never really liked Elmo since he arrived late on the scene and started stealing the show from Kermit, Grover, Herry and Cookie. I named the bird Genny and set her up in a nice cage with food, water and toys.

As with all new arrivals, I didn’t bother her much those first few days so she’d have a chance to adjust to her new surroundings in a spare room of the little cottage where we lived at the time. One thing I learned working at Midwest Bird and Exotic Animal Hospital was that an all seed diet was bad for a bird’s health. If you wanted your bird to live a long, healthy life it was best to feed a pelleted diet. Pellets are similar to dog or cat kibble except they’re designed with bird nutrition in mind. They come in various colors and sizes for different birds. This was still fairly new thinking, but I was all in so I started Genny on pellets right away, while still feeding her seed. I could have also offered table food like corn, beans and rice, but I only did that if we had leftovers from our own human meals. The doctors always stressed that it should be a gradual transition from seeds to pellets, adding that it could take weeks or months. You’re supposed to slowly decrease the seed while increasing the pellets. Makes sense, right?

Well, I was so proud of myself because I had that baby girl eating pellets within about ten days. I knew that if an animal was hungry it would eat so we could just do away with the seeds altogether. This was over fifteen years ago and I truly can’t remember what made me think she was eating well, but whatever it was, I was terribly wrong because I found her dead at the bottom of the cage one morning. Of course, I was shocked and bummed and confused all at once. I wrapped her up and took her to work with me so somebody could hopefully give me an explanation.

Without even doing a post-mortem exam, it was obvious to the doctors and technicians that she was very, very thin. Her keel, or breast bone, was very prominent with no “meat” around it. I told them I had recently moved her to a pellet-only diet and thought she was eating fine. The simple fact is that I was wrong. She was still a young bird, maybe only a few months old, and shouldn’t have been expected to eat just pellets. She was dead now and I couldn’t go back. I hate that feeling. For one, I felt I had left the previous owner down. On top of that, my arrogance had made an animal suffer, something I would pay good money to never allow.

The client who gave me that bird came into the animal hospital at least once after that. I never told her what happened and she, for some odd reason, didn’t ask how Elmo was doing. There had been a long time between visits to the animal hospital, so maybe she wasn’t sure if I was the same person who had her bird or maybe she expected me to say something first. I always wondered about this. I’ve never been any good at lying and I’m glad I didn’t have to, but if she would have asked, I would have saved her grief and said the bird was fine, but that I’d changed her name to Genny. I suppose I thought disappointing her just a little with this truth was preferred over disappointing her a lot with the whole truth.

It was a costly, blatant mistake that I’ve not since made again. I’ve made others and I’ll surely write about them, but none that cost an animal its life, so I hope you’ll keep reading. My two current cockatiels are pushing 16 years of age and eat some pellets, but mostly seeds.

This is our cockatiel, Weston. His coloration is called "normal grey." If it was a female, there wouldn't be any yellow on the face and the orange patches would appear dull or faded.