In memory of the bird:

(Written circa 1998?)

Well, the bird croaked. It wasn't even my bird, really, but I cried anyway. It was nine years old.

Nine years ago my (then) girlfriend, Barbara,  got it in her head to get a canary. But, at the pet store, she decided that she wanted a huge pink cockatoo. It developed that a cockatoo was too big and noisy a bird for a small apartment, so she settled on Kelly, a white eyed Conure.

Kelly was Barbara's bird.

But nobody told Kelly that. Conures, like a lot of hand raised birds, bond strongly to their human handlers. But just to one. It was always a mystery to me why Kelly chose to bond to the person least interested, unless it was for the same reason a cat will try to sit on the lap of the one person in a room that doesn't like cats. . .

And when the time came for Barbara and I to part ways, I found myself the somewhat surprised and confused yet - new owner of a green bird.

I finally decided (tho no one really knows about bird sexes) that Kelly was a she bird. It just seemed to explain things. Like why several subsequent ladies tried but never succeeded in winning Kelly's affection.

While it was just Kelly and I living together, I guess we did OK. Her cage sometimes got a bit scruffy looking (smelling) but we managed. When I was home I would spend a bit of time with her, not much, really. But I could handle her easily, and she learned a few tricks, or taught them to me. She wanted to be wherever I was and I usually let her sit near the sink if I was in the kitchen, or on the desk, or dining room table. She was actually a lot of company even if a damn nuisance and a hell of a messy little critter. I'd've rather had a cat.

The problems began when I wasn't living alone. Because that was when I started to work more hours. And spend less and less time with Kelly. I figured that the other people in the house would be company enough for her, and I figured wrong.

Kelly began to develop some bad habits that were to last the rest of her days: mostly feather plucking, a common ailment of birds that feel neglected. No matter if you feel that they should feel neglected or not. Feather plucking is just a grooming mechanism gone crazed. Without the distraction of attention from the person Kelly felt she should be getting attention from, she would pluck herself down to her pin feathers, and to bare skin.

No amount of attention and effort from anyone else seemed to help. Lord knows that Cristina had more success than I ever thought possible with Kelly, even getting her to sit on a shoulder or head, eat from her fingers, and pick her up. Not pick Cristina up, Cristina pick Kelly up. To Kelly, (idiot bird) it didn't count. Or she was just so into her self destructive behaviors it was too late.

She had never been sick in nine years, but a few weeks ago she seemed obviously distressed, rocking on her perch with her feathers fluffed out. We did what we could, which wasn't much. Turned the heat up a bit. And came home from dinner that evening to find her on the floor of the cage, deader than the proverbial doornail. I tried to be gruff about picking her off the bottom. But when I realized her little claws were wrapped around the rungs and I had to pry each one loose, it was too much.

I was bawling pretty good as I stuck her in the compost heap.

Well of course the next day, Cristina got her out and gave her a decent burial next to the house, with a marker and all.

And to think I lugged that bird all the way to Marquette and back, this past summer.

No more birds.