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At present, we have only two birds living with us: Mithrandir, a Congo African Grey Parrot, 12 years old, and Prospero, a 13 year old Blue and Gold Macaw. Rio, the Solomon Islands Eclectus hen, has moved back to be with Cyndi, who is her favorite person in the world.
Below are a few pictures of Mith, Pros, and Rio, and of Ariel, a Golden-capped Conure, whom we lost in winter 2006. (Click here for Ariel's story.)
Mithrandir, Congo African Grey. March 2009.
Rio, Solomon Islands Eclectus, March 2009.
Prospero, Blue and Gold Macaw, March 2003.
Prospero, chewing on his manzanita perch. March 2009.
Rio and Mith on a boing, March 2009.
Prospero, still damp from his shower. March 2009.
Ariel's favorite treat was spaghetti. Here's he's trying to steal some from Meghan. (Spring 2006)
Prospero being blessed by our priest.
The Blessing of the Animals, Church of Our Saviour, Feast of St. Francis, 2006
(Pros is wearing a harness, by the way. No way I'd let that boy out untethered, clipped or not.)
Prospero, doing a perfectly-executed Macaw-lunge.
Rio loves corn on the cob. (July 2006)
Mithrander goes for it, too. (July 2006)
Ariel, not long after we got him, with his adult plumage coming in. |
Why, that's my dainty Ariel! I shall miss thee . . .
— The Tempest, Act V, Scene 1
I once swore I was never going to get a conure — they were way too noisy for me. Then I met Ariel. We had gone into the bird store where we had bought two of our other birds, and the manager came up to me. "You've got to see this little bird!" she said. No harm in looking, we thought. So she took us over to a cage with a large-eyed green bird in it. No harm in just picking the little thing up, we thought. So Ginny took the little creature out of the cage, and he hopped on my finger — and immediately did a somersault into the palm of my hand to have his tummy tickled.
Sold!
He did have all the problems I expected in a conure. He was noisy. He had to chew on something all the time, and if the only thing handy was my finger, he chewed on my finger. Over time, though, and with patient training, the chewing problems went entirely away, and the screaming was reduced to the point where he only screamed (and only briefly) when someone came home or when something frightened him. He became, in short, the perfect conure. He bopped madly to rock music, giggled when he was given a treat or when playing peek-a-boo, clowned around, and, when especially happy, tipped his little head back and made a happy keening noise.
Three years after we acquired Ariel, I developed mild MS, and went through a divorce. I faced a tough choice. I knew I could not take adequate care of my six birds by myself, so I placed the three who were the most easy-going and least neurotic. Cheerful little Ariel went to live with Callie, the daughter of my close friend, Richard Grant.
By Christmas 2005, my situation had changed again, this time for the better. I now have my husband and his two kids to help with the birds. As it happened, Callie had moved from her mom's house into Richard's apartment, which really didn't have room for Ariel. So we went up to pick up Ariel, and he came to our house to be the special companion of Meghan. It was so good to have the little fellow back.
On February 20, 2007, I went in to give Ariel his goodnight treat and found him on the bottom of his cage in obvious distress. I got him out while Julian called our vet's emergency number and Meghan looked on, beside herself with worry. We reached the vet, and then headed up the road to Charlotte. We hadn't gotten more than a couple of miles when Ariel had a seizure and died in my hands.
There was no warning. He was fine and in high spirits in the morning, and then gone in the evening. He was just ten years old. (Those without parrots need to understand that well cared-for parrots are generally very long-lived. Like other small parrots, Ariel should have had a life-expectancy of 30 years or so.)
The necropsy revealed no signs of illness, no blockages. His lungs were clear. His crop was full and he had normal stool in his intestines. The vet said she could tell that he'd been wonderfully cared for. She did not open his skull, since she was mostly looking for something that could be a hazard to the other birds.
The results of the lab tests came as another shock. Ariel died of solvent toxicity. I couldn't believe it. I allow no scented candles in the house. We own nothing with Teflon (or any other non-stick coating). There is no incense allowed in the house, no air "fresheners," nothing I could think of (or had ever been warned about) that could possibly pose a risk to my birds. Heck, we chose our new flooring partly because its installation did not involve using any adhesives that might harm the birds.
After carefully going through everything we could think of that Ariel could have been around, we know what it must have been. On the Sunday before Ariel died, he was exposed to fingernail polish remover, which was used (and spilled on the carpet) in the room where his cage was.
The vet says, yes, it could have taken two days for the effects to show up.
It was hugely painful to realize what killed our little Ariel. I had warned everyone in the family against everything I could think of that might be dangerous to the birds, but I did not warn them about nail polish remover. I had never heard of a bird dying from exposure to nail polish remover, and, frankly, I would have thought that nail polish remover would dry too quickly to be a hazard.
I am writing this in the hope that some one else's beloved bird may be saved. Pass the word, please.
Thanks to all our friends for all your words of comfort, and a special thanks to the All Parrots group on Yahoo, and to Richard, who listened to me (by phone) sobbing all the way home from the vet's.
A small but very bright light is gone from our lives.
Pamela Meltzer of Puppypaws.com created a pendant from Ariel's tracks. (Search for "parrot.")
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