Beeker

I remember my very first bird. Holly. She was a white zebra finch with black "tears", and a bright orange beak. I still lived in Utah so I was in maybe second or third grade. My Mom wouldn't let us have a dog after I had been bitten, and she was allergic to cats. Gerbils were a disaster- poor Suzy and Midnight- they went "camping" with us. But this was a pet of my very own. I would hold her, and when she laid little jelly belly sized eggs I thought it was the neatest thing although I never understood why they wouldn't hatch- LOL! My brother got a canary that he named Tweety. That started a long lineage of birds in our family. Chico and Riley were other memorable birds. I used to dress them up in my barbie clothes, and have them ride in the barbie raft in the bathtub, or ride in the barbie jeep. Poor birds. They were always good sports though! Or bit a big hole in your finger to let you know the boundaries... When Art and I moved to Utah he was brought in to the bird way of life. We got three finches, one of whom we named Greeley. Even our store was not immune. We got a pair of finches for the showroom. I used to say the only thing "cheap" in here are the birds... Alas, they proved to be amazing breeders. After the fourth clutch in less than a year we had to take them back to the store. Then came our big ferret for parrot swap. We had two stinky troublesome ferrets that we really didn't want anymore, and came across some customers who had a ton of birds, but really wanted a ferret. This is how we got Ody and his buddy Hillary. Hillie went to live in CO and later passed away from a brain tumor. Ody is the reigning Big Bird in the house. A double yellow headed amazon that is 20 and may live to 80. Last week when we were down in CT for the fourth of July I noticed that their parakeet's cage was on the floor in the living room that they are currently using as storage as they combine households. This is o.k., but no one ever goes in that room except their three cats! We went down last weekend, and the poor little thing hadn't moved. So I asked Eric if he could live at my house. He readily agreed. So we loaded him in the back seat of the car with Polar. He travelled great. He got home and settled right in. Ody is fascinated with him, and is currently in lock down until this wanes a bit... But he has a lovely song, and is great at the "blink game." A classic bird trust game where you give a long blink, and when they trust you they will (long) blink back. Art christened him Beeker. I'm sure the lab assistant from the muppet show inspired it, and I had been calling him 'baby beaks' or 'beaky bird' anyway so it seemed to fit. We went out and got some new toys and essentials like gravel, a cuttle bone, a bird bath, and vitamins for Beeker and he seems to have settled right in. Welcome to the family Beeker!