In "Flying Over The Rainbow", I related an incident involving Laka (our macaw) telling me that there were monsters in her "bedroom". I'm not remembering exactly when that happened - I think it was 2009. She continues to occasionally come up with new phrases and words, but "monstah" has not come up again.
Or at least it hadn't until the other night. It was about 9:30 pm and I was in the kitchen reading. I could hear Laka shifting around in her bedcage upstairs. That's not unusual, she often will turn around on her perch, making just a little bit of noise in the process. But on this occasion, the little bit of noise got louder and suddenly I could hear her moaning "oh!Oh! OoooooOooooff!", followed by the frantic thrashing of wings.
I got up the stairs as fast as I could, calling to her as I went. When I turned on the light I found her clinging to the side of her cage, upside down. Her expression was wild, and as I approached her, she raised her "shoulders" in a warning stance. I know better than to reach for her unprotected when she does that - so I draped a quarter-folded bath towel over my arm, opened her cage door and reached for her. As I expect, she struck hard at the towel - biting down with all her might. With four-layers of thick terrycloth, my arm was protected - and after she struck a few times, she calmed down and stepped onto the towel.
I brought her out of the cage and had her step directly onto my other arm (the towel had done it's job). She was trembling violently, poor thing. I talked softly and soothingly to her, told her she was a "good girl" and that she was safe. She calmed down pretty well and after a couple of minutes, I was able to put her back into her cage and turn off the lights.
She was quiet for about 10 minutes, but then started in again, thrashing even more violently than before.
I repeated the towel-stepping and talked to her, telling her she was alright - but she wasn't calming down much this time. I hadn't heard any noises outside - but I asked her "Is there a monstah?" - and her reaction was distinct and immediate - she started tossing her head back and forth, as if to say "yeah! YEAH!" and then she looked up at the ceiling and said "ah! Ah! Ah!" several times.
OK. So it's a monstah. Probably something moving around on the roof.
Laka was pretty worked up, but again allowed me to sooth her. I told her she was safe, and that she'd done the right thing by calling out and flapping.
"You're a good, brave girl, Laka. You did exactly the right thing and that old monstah has run away."
Yeah- I know this all sounds nuts, but Laka calmed down, purred a little and begged for a scritch. After that she went back to bed and it was quiet from then on.
Hi Elizabeth,
ReplyDeleteThanks for every articles, every bit of infos in sevenparrots.com and also stillflyingovertherainbow.blogspot!! It's so educated and informative and truly open my eyes (in a good way)!!
I have came into your website while I intensively researching about parrots in Australia and in big wide open web world. Oh, by the way, I am Anne from Malaysia, I never have any real interaction with any bird other than admiring them from a far until around April/May 2012.
We accidentally inherited a wild bird that my neighbor has rescued. She could not keep her as she is going back to Spain but they have clipped her wings and she was very very tame, she couldn't and wasn't ready to go back to the wild again. So, we took her in.
Almost everything you mentioned in your website have happened to me, some in similar situations. Oh yes, She is a Shreak bulbul, she is a song bird. Can you imagine, every early morning, once she heard the voice of your footstep, she started to sing. I was almost cried when she look at me and flip her wing slightly, she only does it when she is please with something. I was shocked when she showed us her back and ignore us because she was angry at us for coming home late.
You know, I never thought a bird can be so intelligent. Birdy had opened my eyes and see how ignorant I was as a human being!!!! Unfortunately, the lesson cut short when she flew into a fan one morning. She never flew high because of the wind or pressure from the fan so we thought she did understand the danger. We never forgive ourselves, I never forget our hand shook and she started to turn stiff and tears just came down from my eyes and my fiancé will never forget that morning when she just took off and flew straight to the fan, it was happened in front of him. It took him weeks to sit on where he was and tried to reason what she was thinking and why she just fly straight into the fan.
Sorry, I have been carried away. She was my daughter. Okay, what brings me here is to thank you for sharing all your experience with birds and your knowledge about them. And, I did understand your feelings to leave your birds behind. Not that you want to, there is no option.
So, thank you and please write more. I can not wait to read about your flocks and what they get themselves into!!! It make me laugh especially when Pakish said to you:" You are a big kakaboodie!!"
Hi, Anne! Thanks for leaving a comment here (sorry it took so long to reply). I'm glad you are enjoying the website and the blog.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to hear about Birdie - and understand well the shock that you feel when they do something dangerous you thought before they would never do. Accidents happen, and all we can do is learn from them (and tell others about it, as you've done here, so that they can avoid the same thing happening).
Thanks for reading, Anne!
Hi Liz! Don't worry about that and thanks for putting up with me. Haha!! I was carried away with my grieves and memories of her when I wrote the comment.
DeleteI hope one day we will meet up in Melbourne for coffee and give Lakka a head scratch if she let me. :)
Oh, now I know who was the Monstah!!! It was the Possum!
Last week, I saw with my own eyes on how Jesse smooched for some cuddles and attentions!! Haha!! It was clearly an act from a two years old....if you closed your eyes, I bet that was what you see...a two years old girl!!
Oh, just to share with you, now we (my fiancée and I) will call each other "a big kakaboodie" when we get annoyed at each other. Haha!!