BUDGIES
When my wife first moved to Port Elizabeth, before we were married, she took with her a green budgie called Joey. He was quite old and had not been socialized with humans, did not talk and panicked if you put a hand in his cage. Sonja cared for him and saw to all his needs but there was no interaction between them. I don’t recall how or when he died and all I recall about him is that he was green.
PETE
Once we had moved into a bigger flat, we decided we would like to bring a new budgie into the family so we went out and bought a beautiful yellow budgie and named him Pete. He was an immediate success as he proved to be sociable and willing to interact with us. He never learned to talk as we weren’t in for most of the day while he was already “out of nappies” by the time we got him and not as impressionable and trainable as a very young bird. We allowed him out of his cage in the flat and he really enjoyed flitting about the place. He especially liked landing on me while I was having supper and that’s him on my head in the snap alongside. His favourite sport was nibbling on the collars of my shirts and we jokingly used to say that he had qualified at the “University of Collar-ado”. Something I discovered quite accidentally was that Pete loved the smell of whatever toothpaste I was using. I was talking to him close-up one morning after my ablutions and he caught a whiff of my “Aquafresh breath”. He reacted by opening his beak and “tasting” the air. After that it became a routine which I would carry out every day and he never failed to react, just as if he was standing under a cold shower.
With his friend, Buddy, Pete travelled quite a bit with us. Once I had to go to Cape Town to do a branch and Sonja and the two birds joined us for a couple of weeks while we were staying at the Holiday Inn in Pinelands. We allowed them to fly around the room, as they were used to doing this back home. Pete obviously could not see the glass in the large sliding window and flew into the pane with an appalling bang. The poor little guy fell to the floor stunned and actually cried out in agony. We thought he was a goner but we picked him up and put him back in his cage and soon he was himself again. After that they were only allowed to fly if the curtains were closed.
BUDDY (UNCA BUD)
We brought Buddy in as company for Pete. We both worked and Pete was on his own most of the day so a friend seemed to be a good idea. Buddy was also a yellow budgie and the two of them got on perfectly well. He was quite young when we got him and as can be seen from the accompanying photograph, still had plenty of baby feathers when the photo was taken. He also settled down remarkably quickly and followed Pete’s example in everything he did. If Pete decided to land on me, Bud would follow.
When Pecky joined Pete and Buddy in the cage, Buddy developed an unknown problem with his legs, which left him with his legs splayed out on either side of his body. He seemed to have totally dislocated his “hips” and was unable to perch and get around the cage. We had a suspicion that he and Pete might have had a fight over Pecky, which had seriously injured Bud so we gave him his own cage. Rather than letting him live his life on the floor of the cage, I built a little platform for him up in the cage, which enabled him to reach his water and seed as well as his mirror. He soon cottoned on to that and amazingly seemed quite happy to spend his days disabled. Sonja had quite a job keeping his platform reasonably sanitary but euthanasia never entered our minds as he was as bright and chirpy as Pete and Pecky. I started referring to him as Unca Bud as he seemed like an elder statesman to me!
PECKY (+ Skweeks & Snooky)
We can’t really recall why we brought in the little blue hen, Pecky but she moved in with Pete and Buddy and Pete was immediately “smitten” with her. Female budgies are really quite nasty little devils, always willing to peck whoever and whatever they can get hold of. She literally “hen-pecked” Pete shamelessly but despite her awful treatment of him, he adored her. She would spitefully knock him off the perch with a well aimed peck and he never once retaliated. Yet despite her attitude, he mated with her and she produced eggs. We inserted a nesting box in the cage for her and to our amazement, she hatched two male chicks right there in our flat. We named the green one Skweeks and the grey one Snooky. Never have two brothers been less alike. Skweeks had his head out of the hole in the nesting box before he even had feathers while Snooky, even fully fledged, cowered shyly in the dark box for ages, unwilling to come out into the world. These disparate personalities persisted into adulthood, so Skweeks remained boisterous and noisy, while Snooks sat quietly on his perch and seldom said a word.
Pecky laid more eggs but no further hatchlings appeared. The couple stayed with us for a good few years, Pecky giving dear old Pete a hard time right to the end. Seldom has a bird been more appropriately named.
THEDI
Pronounced Teddy, this little chap was the surprise of a lifetime. All our budgies had died off and we decided to look around for a youngster. Sonja found a pet shop which had just taken in three baby budgies, recently out of the nest and the shopkeeper was raising them by hand. Two of the birds were strong-looking and healthy, while the third was a bit of a runt and sat well away from the “spotlight”. Needless to say, Sonja scorned the smart looking birds and asked to look at the little weak one. However, she decided not to take him and returned to the car. We had just driven around the block on our way home and were discussing the situation when she suddenly decided that he really was destined to come home with us and back we went to the shop! Sonja was so excited with her new boy that she walked out of the shop without paying for him! The shop assistant followed her to the car to her chagrin and he very gently reminded her of her lapse.
Anyway, we decided that he was to be Thedi, in line with our “naming standards” and Sonja stopped off to buy some strawberry flavoured Morvite porridge on the way back home, which was what he had been fed up till then. The pet shop fellow said he fed them twice a day but little Thedi showed surprising spunk by demanding food very loudly, whenever he felt like it…. which he did quite often. One supposes his brothers had had the best of the food at the shop and he decided to make up for lost time now he had no opposition. He went absolutely crazy, screaming for food all day long and Sonja just could not say no to him. It took no time at all for him to grow his beautiful feathers and to our amazement, start mimicking us like an old pro. He just decided one day, without any prompting, that he no longer needed Morvite and would henceforth eat seeds like a grown-up. He really was most precocious but most of all in respect of his “talking”.
We could hardly believe our luck when Thedi started building up a remarkable vocabulary, not to mention a whole bunch odd noises. His first words were “Hello Mommy” followed by, ”Go shopping”, the latter often complete with an audible intake of breath before the phrase. He mimicked his canary neighbor’s song perfectly and just never stopped chattering. His speech was peppered with all sorts of words and half heard phrases but his piece de resistance was his mimicking of Sonja coughing. He did this so well that one might be forgiven for thinking he was unwell himself. Something else that was so striking about Thedi was the appropriateness of things he said. He would say, “Is that you Mommy?” whenever Sonja came into the kitchen where his cage stood. He would also say “Go shopping” excitedly if Sonja walked by with her handbag and the dogs and “Goodnight Mommy” when she covered his cage at night. He often used to say "Hello Granny Gran Granny" and even "Glucosamine' - heaven knows where he got that from! It really seemed as if he understood what he was saying.
He travelled down to Cape Town with us and continued his “education”, enunciating perfectly as if he had had elocution lessons. He was particularly attracted to the ladies in our family and shamelessly flirted with them. He didn’t go for men at all and we all got the cold shoulder from him.
He died rather suddenly of a respiratory complaint. His passing left us stunned and we almost decided not to get any more budgies after his demise.
(It’s a pity this blog does not allow for the inclusion of sound clips because my sister recorded hours of Thedi “talking”. It would be fun if we could provide evidence of his intelligence and abilities.)
THIMI AND THAMI
After Thedi passed on we were without a budgie for a while but then a lady in our suburb advertised on Facebook that she had a budgie, recently hatched which could be had for free. We eagerly asked if we could give the bird a home and the owner kindly let us have her. We were optimistic at first that we had a male but her cere gradually turned brown, signaling that she was a hen. We named her Thami and made tentative efforts to teach her to talk. Our experience was that females never learned to talk but literature on the birds assured us that females could also be taught, but with some difficulty. However, she showed no signs of being interesting in mimicking us and really wasn’t particularly friendly either. As I write this, she has been recovering from some illness which might have been problems with her thyroid. Given an iodine block, she promptly set about demolishing it as if she knew that Iodine was the mineral she needed. I have given her space in my (warm) study while she’s ill and while she is not out of the woods yet, her condition has improved. (Watch this space)
Sonja stayed in touch with the breeder and soon she was told that another chick had been hatched and would we like to have it. We did of course and this time we were lucky to get a male. From the word go it was obvious that Thimi was a lot friendlier and more outgoing than his rather taciturn sister. He took to me quite quickly and would come right up to me when I spoke to him in the cage. I taught him several whistles and clicks which he picked up like a shot and at the same seemed to prefer the pitch of Sonja’s voice and learned phrases and words from her. He says “Hello Thimi boy” quite clearly now amongst a bunch of jabbered words we can’t quite make out. He prattles on and on all day and is hyperactive and always on the go in his cage.
He really doesn’t seem to like being left on his own and has some really loud screeching tantrums when he wants attention. He seems to be a robust fellow and in excellent health so we are optimistic that we will not lose his company before we’ve enjoyed a few years of it. We keep him well covered up in the dining room/lounge area now, which is warmer and gets the sun during winter.
He has actually let himself out of his cage once by lifting up one of the sliding doors to the cage. After exhausting himself by flying around like mad, he was captured and put back in the cage which now has clothes pegs in place to stop him from making another escape. Never underestimate the intelligence of these wee psitticines – they’re a good deal brighter than one thinks.
We’re hoping this cheeky lad will be with us for a long time. He really brightens up the house with his chatter.
MORE BUDGIES
In the more recent times, several more budgies lived with us but time has eroded our memories to the extent where we’re not sure who was who. To name a couple, we had a PECKATOO who must have been a hen and a successor to grumpy old PECKY. There was also one called GIRLYBIRD who should have been called WHIRLYBIRD because of her trick of quickly whirling in one place on her perch. I have a strong feeling there were more but now I’ll have to wait for the reunion on Rainbow Bridge, in order to refresh my memory.
We also had a snow white budgie who just refused to become domesticated and if released would fly madly around, looking for a way out. She got out of her cage one night during a fierce windstorm and fluttered right throughout our townhouse, being chased by us. She eventually shot into my study where a window was slightly open and she somehow got out through the crack and flew away. The wind was really violent that night and there is every likelihood that she would have been swept out into the bay to perish. Perhaps it was fate – she just wasn’t meant to become a friend of humans.
One of our neighbours in the townhouse complex where we lived in Port Elizabeth, brought a young green budgie to us in a cage, saying that the little guy had been picked up totally exhausted, in the street outside the village. We undertook to foster him until enquiries had been made as to whose bird it could be. Nobody ever claimed him, so he became ours. Unhappily, he took ill quite early on and died.
CANARIES
TWEETS
We never really planned on keeping canaries but when my mother came down to live with us in Port Elizabeth, she expressed a wish for a canary to keep her company while we were away at work. Sonja found Tweets at a local pet shop. He had been returned to the shop by a previous buyer who complained that he was too noisy. (Heavens, that person must have had cloth ears. Canaries are only delightfully musical, never noisy!). Mom was delighted with her boy so Tweets came to stay with us.
After some months with us, Mom was most unhappy and after spending some time on holiday with Pat, decided she would not be coming back to Port Elizabeth. We scrambled her into the old age home in Ladybrand when it became obvious that the Clarks, with their itinerant lifestyle were not in a position to offer her a home. So Mom and Tweets found a room at the Lydia Old-age home where Tweets soon became a firm favourite with the nurses who looked after the old people. They would constantly bring him treats from the garden, such as dandelions or chickweed.
He was wonderful company for Mom and a fine singer, not the least bit afraid to raise his voice in song. He was pretty feisty too and would attack any finger carelessly poked through the bars of his cage. When Mom went up to Pietersburg to join Pat for a holiday, Tweets went along. Pat recalls how, after she had cleaned his cage, Tweets would do a quick inventory of his "things" - apple, boiled egg, song treat, seed and water - just in ase Pat had forgotten something. Mom died during the last of these visits and Tweets had to tarry a while with the Clarks. Pat & Chris travelled a lot then as they still do, so keeping Tweets just wasn’t feasible for them - so we were asked to give him a home again. Despite all the travelling he did, Tweets carried on with us for a good few more years. As he grew older, he lost the ability to perch so spent his life on the floor of the cage. He still ate well and remained bright and alert, so we elected to just let Nature decide his fate.
It really was a very sad day when that little clear voice was stilled. He was amazingly tough for such a fragile seeming bird and we really mourned his passing.
CHEEPY (aka CHEEPS)
Soon after Tweets had passed on, we went off to the pet shop in search of a new canary. The house was just too quiet without the clear song of a canary. Imagine my surprise and annoyance when Sonja brought a bird out to the car which looked nothing like the yellow canary I so fondly remembered. It looked for all the world like a sparrow and I did not believe it would sing a single note.
But I was as wrong as can be. We took him home and before long, he started trilling and trying out his scales, just like any old canary does. He didn’t know he didn’t fit the picture of a songster of note – he just carried on and sang just like a canary should. He was a good deal louder than his predecessor, although he sang pretty much the same “compositions”.
Just a month before we were due to move to Cape Town, Cheeps suddenly took ill and died. His passing really broke our hearts as our home was just too quiet without his wonderful singing.
THEO
Theo joined our menagerie after we had settled down in Bellville. Sonja found “him” in a pet shop in Panorama and was assured by the “expert” that the bird was a male. Yet in all the time Theo was with us he/she never sang a note and everything about the bird suggested that it was a female. We eventually reluctantly decided to think of it as a female but did not wish to change the name, so she spent her short life just looking pretty, which she really was. As has so often happened with our birds, Theo developed a respiratory problem which claimed her little life. Sadly, she is probably the last canary we will have owned as we have no plans to try and find another one.
CRESTED CANARIES (GLOSTERS)
Some years after our retirement, we spotted some crested canaries and couldn’t resist buying three. For the uninitiated, these little birds have what look like little wigs atop their heads. Picture a monk’s tonsure or a pudding-bowl haircut and you have an idea what they look like. Endlessly amusing to look at, as they peered out at one from beneath their fringes, they were merely ornamental and did not sing like a normal canary. Neither Sonja nor I recall if they were named although the name WIGGY seems to ring a bell somewhere. Unfortunately they were very fragile and all died in quick succession.
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