The great birdscapade

We used to keep birds; Australian native Budgerigars and Cockatiels (or, as we call them, Weiros). It’s been a while, though, and since our last Budgie girl died, we haven’t had any pet birds, and her big old cage got stored into the garden shed.

I went to the store with a relative this morning and saw a small Weiro on the road. He kind of flung himself around, ending up in a nearby tree. It was instantly obvious he was very young, and likely an escaped domestic-bred bird. By the looks of his tired flapping, he’d been out in the very welcome summer thunder storms which have been lashing Perth.

I tried to coax the little fella out of the tree. He looked down at me and chirruped, but didn’t seem to know what to do. We decided to make our way to the store and grab some bird seed while we were there, in case he stayed in the tree.

Naturally, the poor young bird had remained in place, too cold and tired to bother trying to figure out what to do in the big, wide world. He seemed really interested in the handful of bird seed I held up to him, but when that didn’t achieve anything, I climbed on top of the car and used a long stick to try and lead him out of the tree.

He climbed right onto the stick, and with the quick reflexes of my relative, he was captured! He chittered and tried to nip with his beak, so we jumped back in the car and let him go. There was a little flying around the car, but the Weiro settled quickly and seemed to decide we weren’t all bad after all. Then came the hilarious drive home with a loose Weiro strutting up and down the dashboard. He didn’t seem to the journey back, and while I ran and collected the old bird cage from the backyard, he even took a quick doze on the dash.

For the time being, he’s living in the bathroom. Those storms are still charging through, and it’s the best room of the house to keep the bird away from my cat flock. On that note, one of the cats grew up around birds and is completely indifferent, one of them is ridiculously interested (to the point of hanging off the side of the cage if you’re not watching closely), and one of them is actually a little frightened. After all, the Weiro doesn’t much like the kitties, and he lowers his body and spreads his wings and tail feathers out to make himself look super big – for a little bird.

We’ll be looking to see if anyone’s lost him in the area; being a bird, he could’ve travelled some distance before the stormy weather tired him out. If we can’t find an owner, well, it looks like we’ll have a bird again.

~A