Tales of Odysseus

Homer tells a tale in the Iliad and the Odyssey of Odysseus, the traveler. We have our own traveler in the house named Odysseus although we call him Odie...well, I call him Odie Balonie. Odie is typical of so many parrots. Once a cute baby Congo, his owners grew tired of him. They handled him less and less until one day they reached into his cage to get him out and he bit one of them. This bite caused the owner to be "bird shy" which complicated the problem.

Days turned into weeks...then months, and finally Odie had spent a year and a half inside his cage. His only contact with his owners was when they fed and watered him daily. Eventually, they moved into a new home and Odie was placed in an empty dining room, out of the way. Fortunately, Odie did not color coordinate with the decorating scheme so they placed the standard ad in the newspaper, "Three year old Congo Grey with cage, $$$$".

I noticed the ad the first day it ran and called early in the morning. I expected to find a scroungy (sp), underweight bird. What I found was a beautiful, healthy Congo with a serious attitude. I tried talking to Odie before opening the cage door but he seemed nervous. Finally, I opened the door and slowly put my hand to his chest with the command, "step up". Odie didn't step. Rather, he bit the hell out of me. Then he bailed out and flew accross the room.

Trying to look like the fearless, experienced bird person I plucked him out of a ficus tree and placed him in a pet carrier. At this point I was dripping blood on their carpet. The adventure began.

(to be continued - Craig)
- posted by J-Birds @ 9:05 PM |