A Eulogy to Our “Little Bits”

Little Bits, I think that I am going to miss you the most of all of our departed babies. You were the ONLY bird that I ever bought, since Jeanne and I have been married. Jeanne bought Mandilynne for me about 6 ½ years ago for my birthday, but I have never bought a bird myself, and for myself.

The 24 September 2005 Bird Show was held only about 3 weeks after “Hurricane Katrina” hit the Gulf Coast around 5 September 2005. About 1/3 of the “Vendor Tables” was vacant, because of the hurricane. There was not an English Budgerigar to be found in the entire show. Jeanne got home from working a 12-hour shift and had to go to sleep in order to be able to go back to work at 5 P.M. Saturday afternoon. So she asked me to go to the Bird Show and buy a Green and Yellow Female English Budgerigar. Since there were no English Budgerigars to be found, I saw you in a cage with other parakeets and fell in love with you.

I have always considered you to be “my bird!” I loved to play with you, and you apparently enjoyed playing with me. One of your favorite past-times was to yank on one end of your navy-blue triangular house and flap your wings like you were trying to fly out of your cage and take your house with you. One of your favorite toys was the green and purple plastic ball, which you carried around in your beak and shook with your beak, until at last, you had “slam dunked” your ball in your water cup, which is where I usually found the ball.

One of our daily routines was to take you into Jeanne’s bathroom and to set you down on a piece of toilet paper and to tell you to “Go Poo,” which you normally did.

You were a “handful” in more ways than one. You were a little bird who fit perfectly in my hand. You were also a self-assured little bird who feared nothing and no one. Most of all, you gave us Amani Lynn, Ann Marie and Jeanne Marie as your legacy. But you didn’t stop there! You continued laying about 80 infertile eggs, all or most of which would have hatched, had your mate been in the same cage with you.

When I bought you, I was told by the bird breeder, that you were only 3 months old, so Jeanne and I thought that it was safe to leave you outside of our cages to be with our other birds. Little did we know that you were about 9 months old and able to reproduce. Jeanne and I always called you our “Mormon” bird, because of all the eggs that you laid.

I am going to miss you terribly, even as I miss you now. Jeanne suggested that we bury you in your navy-blue triangular house, but we forgot. I was also going to bury you with your favorite green and purple plastic ball, but I also forgot to do it. I set you on the compute desk facing the computer monitor, so that you can “watch” me type your eulogy. So long for now, “Little Bits II”, whom I often just called “Bits,” or “Scruffy Fuzz Butt,” or just “Fuzz Butt!” To me, those were “terms of endearment” to show my love for you. You were named after one of the babies who died just a few hours after hatching from one of the eggs that our “Buddy” laid in October of 1996, when we lived at 823 Thorndyke in Northwest San Antonio.

So long, for now, baby. We look forward to seeing you and our other birds on the other side of the veil. Please give our love and best wishes to all of our babies until we see and raise you all once more.

Jeanne and Randy Faulk

30 August 2007

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The Mormon Prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr. was once asked if animals have souls. He replied that they did, and one day each of our pets will testify as to how well we treated each of them. Jeanne and I believe this to be true,  and we live daily in the hope that we will someday have each of our babies back for us to once again raise and love for all eternity.

(Randy Faulk, The Editor.)

The Story of Our “Rho-Rho,” A Parable

Our thrid trip to New Braunfels was 11 days after my 51st birthday. We bought a cute, little green and yellow male parakeet which had a deformed and shortened leg. Jeanne named him “Rho-Rho.” One Sunday evening, Jeanne and I put “Mandy Jeanne” and “Rho-Rho” into a small cage and took them with us to the home of Iganacio and Alma Hernandez and their 3 children. I was the Hernandez family’s Home Teacher, and my lesson was on “Overcoming Obstacles.” What better way to teach this concept than to show the Hernandez family our two baby birds who had severe physical challenges, but which none-the-less were loving and grateful for our love and care. I told the Hernandez children that if these two little birds could overcome their physical challenges, and show the kind of love that they showed to and for us, then people could overcome whatever challenges they may have to face, without hatred or bitterness.

Jeanne and I bought a beautiful green and yellow female English Budgie, which Jeanne named “Kari-Mel,” after Jeanne had first bought Kari-Mel’s brother, a handsome teal blue English Budgie,which Jeanne named “Kira,”  three weeks before. “Kari-Mel” fell in “love” with “Rho-Rho” at first sight. Although he could not mate because of his deformed leg, “Rho-Rho” was the only male for whom “Kari-Mel” would lay eggs, even though the eggs were infertile. When “Rho-Rho” died on 10 April 2002, “Kari-Mel” grieved for at least a week.

I never knew that a bird could grieve, until Jeanne and I saw “Kari-Mel” grieve over the death of “Rho-Rho.” “Kari-Mel” lived until 21 November 2004, and was the surrogate mate of Periwinkle II until she died, but she never laid any more eggs after the death of her beloved “Rho-Rho.” We discovered that birds have feelings too, and that they can love and grieve, just like humans do…

The Story of Our “Mandy-Keet”

 One of our very first ventures to rescue a baby bird took place on Christmas Eve of 1997, when we drove the 130 miles round trip to buy a baby bird, which Jeanne named “Mandy Jeanne.” The breeders told us that apparently the mother bird had sat much too hard on the bird in the nest box. When the baby bird was to emerge from the nest box, its legs were “spraddled out” like oars on a row boat. True to our word, we paid the breeders full price and took our little Christmas treasure home with us. “Mandy Jeanne” had teal blue feathers and a very sweet disposition. I would often put her in my shirt pocket while I was working on our computer, and she would go to sleep in my pocket. All of a sudden, she would stick her head out of my pocket and look around. I let her “run up and down” the computer keyboard, and peck at the keys, until she got tired. Then I would put her back into my shirt pocket, and again she would go to sleep. I gave her an appropriate nick-name: “Pocket-Keet,” which finally evolved into “Mandy Keet” or just “Keet.”

I took “Mandy Jeanne” with me to the Post Office one Saturday morning to mail some letters. While there was no one around, I weighed each letter on the postal scale: “letter, letter, letter, BIRD, letter, letter, letter! “Mandy Jeanne” weighed in at 5/8 of an ounce!

We took “Mandy Jeanne” to our Vet, Dr. Bill McGeHee to see if he could straighten Mandy Jeannne’s spraddled legs, Bill put a piece of styrofoam between her legs and taped the styrofoam to her legs with surgical tape. No sooner than we got her home, “Mandy Jeanne” would lie on her side and pick at the tape with her beak, until she freed herself. We finally gave up and let her be! “Mandy Jeanne” lived with us for 18 months and died on 25 June of 1997. I wrote her one of my most “moving” and “loving” eulogies, which is still in my journal. For a little bird that was considered of no value to others, she was our little treasure and our Christmas gift from Heavenly Father to love, protect and nurture as our very own.

Audacity, our “Fan Bird”

I would like to share a very special and precious story with you.  This is a true story, and reflects the deep feelings with which my wife, Jeanne, and I regard our birds from whom we have learned many important lessons…

In September of 2007, my wife, Jeanne, and I bought four baby parakeets from a pet store in San Antonio.  One of these little birds had the curiosity to venture and the capacity to squeeze his tiny body through the bars of his cage. 

After some very diligent searching, we found that he had made his way across the twenty foot living room carpet to our other cages in which our other birds were kept. We put him back into his cage with Azure, Mandy Keet, and Jen-Two, before we once again had to leave for several hours. BIG MISTAKE!

When we returned home, it did not take us very long to discover that this little guy had literally “flown the coop!”  Jeanne and I spent the next two hours on our hands and knees and looking behind sofas, wooden chests, boxes, inside of trash cans, and behind our Entertainment Center. We checked every cage in our living room, but we could not find this bird.

Jeanne had a “horizontal blade” floor fan sitting on the living room floor by the air conditioner closet door.  Jeanne briefly raised the floor fan and glanced under the base of the running fan, but she did not see anything.  After many more minutes of diligent searching, Jeanne decided to tip the running fan on its side and then to peer inside of the fan. The little bird had crawled under the base of the fan and had climbed up the inside wall of the fan. Its head was only about 2 inches from below the underside of the running fan!

After turning off the fan, Jeanne managed to reach through the base of the fan and to reach up along the inside wall of the fan and grab the bird. After making certain that the little bird had suffered no ill effects of his harrowing experience inside of the running fan, Jeanne put it into a smaller cage, from which it could not escape.

Jeanne and I sat on the living room sofa and began thinking about a suitable name for this little bird. I came up with the name, “Audacity,” because I considered that the bird was quite “audacious” to squeeze out of its cage and to climb into a running fan!  Jeanne agreed with the name, but as a joke, Jeanne started calling the bird, “Fan Bird,” a nick-name which has stuck to this day. We put him into a cage with  very narrow bars. He shared this cage with 3 other male birds: Big Bird, Jeanne Marie (an obviously misnamed bird, named after my wife, but was soon discovered to be a male), and Mandi-Lynne.

Written 3/12/2010.

We are sad to announce that “Audacity” died in his cage on Wednesday, 12/15/2010. We have since lost all of our other birds, except for “Jeanne Marie” to death…

Our “Miss Buddy” and her Legacy

Before Jeanne and I went on our honeymoon, we took Jeanne’s “Buddy” over to Jeanne’s parents’ home to keep their Parakeet company. By some strange coincedence, Jeanne’s mother’s bird was also named “Buddy.” Our “Buddy” laid two eggs while she was at Jeanne’s parent’ home, and that event settled the issue of the gender of Jeanne’s “Buddy” forever!

The average life expectancy of a Parakeet is about 3 to 5 years. Jeanne’s “Buddy” was 10 years of age when we bought her a mate, a beautiful “Clear Wing,” which is a bird which has opaque white wings. “Jinxie I,” had a cobalt blue chest and a white tail and wings. Shortly after we bought “Jinxie I” from bird breeders in New Braunfels, Texas, “Buddy” laid 8 eggs, which is unusual for a 10 year old bird! We were able to save four of the eight eggs, which when they hatched, produced a cobalt-blue and white male, whom we named “Bud” after Jeanne’s dad. Then there were 2 albino white females, the first of which we named “Lucy” after my mother, and the second albino white female was named “Marie” after Jeanne’s mother. The next four eggs did not hatch. And then, there was egg number eight! When this bird finally got its feathers in, it looked nothing like “Buddy,” “Jinxie I” or any of the other three babies. “Wren I” was a green and yellow Parakeet who had a mind of his own.

Even as Jeanne had let her “Buddy” roam all over her cage: top and sides and down the rope to the floor, we also allowed Buddy’s babies to do the same. “Buddy” travelled “head-first” down the side of her cage and taught all four of her babies to do the same thing. As we bought new birds, “Buddy” and her babies taught our new birds to go down the side of their cage. We now have the “fifth generation” from the original “Buddy” and each and every one of her great-great grandbabies” goes “head-first” down the side of the cage.

We frequently had to look for “Wren I” because he had this penchant for taking off from his cage and hiding. After looking all over the house one day, we heard his “cheep “and looked above our heads to find him on the curtain rod in the living room where he was calmly surveying his domain!

“Buddy” was our companion for many years and died at the ripe old age of 12 years. Neither Jeanne nor I could ever have imagined that a Parakeet could live that long. She was very much loved and is so very much missed. Her memory will live with the two of us forever and will live on in her prodigy…Not a bad life and legacy for a $9 dark gray Parakeet.

Buddy and the Cat

As I have said before, Buddy was a dark gray Parakeet which Jeanne had bought in 1987 at a Wal-Mart.

Jeanne had always allowed “Buddy” to roam on the top and sides of her open cage, just as Jeanne’s mother had allowed her own Parakeets to do when Jeanne was younger and lived at home.

One day, quite by accident, Jeanne left the front door to her apartment partly open, when she went outside, and was talking with a neighbor.

Another neighbor’s cat sneaked into the apartment and tried to eat Jeanne’s bird. When Jeanne realized that she had left the front door open, she rushed inside to find her Buddy in the cat’s mouth!  But Buddy had stuck her wing into the cat’s mouth so that the cat could not swallow nor sink her teeth into the bird’s body.  Jeanne was able to rescue Buddy from the cat, but not from a possible seizure, which means a heart attack!

Parakeets can have a heart attack and  die of fright.  Fortunately, Jeanne is a nurse and was able to keep Buddy from “seizing,” or having a heart attack. Jeanne said that Buddy didn’t come out of her cage for weeks.  When the bird finally did come out of her cage, she very carefully looked for any sign of the cat. Once Buddy was convinced that she was in no further danger from the cat, she settled down. She was always a gentle and loving bird, until the day she died on 7/31/1999. We miss her terribly!!!

Never give up the hope of finding your lost parrot / bird

I am writing to parrotalert with my news about Georgie in the hope that it will encourage fellow bird lovers who have lost their beloved pet, to never lose hope that they too might find their bird.

Georgie flew out of our open door during our house move on 12th June 2009. For the next two weeks I and various members of my family, trudged our local streets at dawn and at dusk calling her name, and knocking on doors surrounding the immediate area where we heard her responses. Although we moved house 6 or 7 miles away, we occasionally returned, still calling out her name and on occasion, still hearing her familiar shriek. Many residents told us they regularly feed the wild birds, and as their gardens contained numerous evergreen trees and bushes, I was confident that she would survive even that last terrible winter. A number of the gardens were inaccessible due to their very private occupiers.

September of this year 2010, my daughter drove me over to he area when I heard mechanical diggers in one of those “private” gardens. I remarked “Oh no, if Georgie HAS nested in there then the machines will have spooked her and she will move on/away.”

Around 4 weeks later, Oct. 22nd my husband and I hand delivered a number of letters in the surrounding homes (again!) reminding the residents about Georgie and my contact details. Tuesday evening 26th one of them rang to say she had been at the local Vet on the previous Thursday, heard a bird chirping away and was told it was a cockatiel that had been found on the road just two streets away from those gardens and that they had her for 3 weeks.

The lady had gone away for the weekend and did not read my letter until that following Tuesday when she rang me.

When my husband and I went to the Vets clinic we were told the bird had been re-homed just a couple of days before, to a friend of the vets nurse who was very objectionable about allowing us the opportunity to see if it was indeed OUR bird.

After we wrote to her boss the senior Vet, HE arranged for the bird to return to his clinic where we positively identified her as our Georgie and subsequently brought her home on Friday 5th November 2010.

16 months and 3 weeks living rough had taken it’s toll on her feathers and general condition, but after initial care at the Vets clinic and further attention with mite spray, conditioning medication in her drinking water, and lashings of TLC from us, she is recovering well and making herself heard again. She’s forgotten much that we had taught her, but remembered some things/tunes/articles.

The vet confirmed that SHE is actually a HE, but I hope Georgie’s story will inspire others to continue their search and never give up hope.

Kind regards

Ms. Frances Courtney (UK) and family, and of course Georgie