A Visitor from Beyond

Recently, I heard a soft little wolf whistle when I opened the car door in our driveway. Ed thought it might be a mockingbird, but I was skeptical. I scanned around the undergrowth of our giant old oak.

This is who we found! A sweet- faced, orange- cheeked little grey cockatiel. I didn’t want to scare him because he was in reach where he was—so I brought him out some water (he sipped a dainty drink) and a pear slice. He took a miniscule nibble of the pear like he was being polite but not really hungry.

I put my index finger down by his feet—after a couple of false starts of almost climbing on, he transferred to my finger, did a scratchy little walk up my forearm, and nuzzled his head against my upper arm. I gave him a little scruff of the neck scratch and we were friends.

Meanwhile, Ed was fixing up an old cage we were using decoratively in our studio (it was full of handmade monsters by our artists friends of the Bungled Jungle). We lined the bottom with paper and I transferred him to his cage. I knew he had to come in for the night—we have our share of raccoons, cats and dogs in the neighborhood.
Handily, one of my customers, Dr. Joel Murphy, had just loaned me a book he had written on the care of pet birds. I looked up what to feed a parrot and found out that Ed and I basically eat a healthy parrot diet. I made up a little dish with grapes, celery and walnuts. He didn’t eat much, but he seemed healthy and chirruped constantly. Later I cooked him up a little pot of brown rice and put a teaspoon in his dish. I stuck my pinky finger through the cage to scratch his neck, which he thoroughly enjoyed.

Ed and I put up “Lost Bird” signs in the neighborhood but the only call we got was from a woman who wanted to know if we could use a larger cage.
On the 4th day we put our little grey friend in a Valencia Orange box lined with a towel and took him to a local vet clinic. I’d called the clinic the day before and the receptionist reassured me he’d be checked out by one of their vets and then put up for adoption.

And it had to be a good clinic—I saw at least two of the staff wearing my Magic Zoo name badges! (I tried to tell one of the doctors that I’d made her badge, but I believe she thought I was merely a deranged woman carrying around a large box).

Even though we left our little visitor in capable hands I still shed a tear or two on the drive home. Who knows, if we didn’t travel so much, I may have kept him myself.
Anyway, he’d been a wonderfully entertaining and sweet guest.