Bird Lady

Bird Lady

I am a bird lady. I am a bird lady, and I do not know how that happened and y’all? These birds never shut up and I’m not sure I wanna be a bird lady, anymore. But I’m a bird lady. And I blame the kids.

That Little One in particular wanted a pet for the longest time. We could not do it in our last home—it was too small and too crowded. And he wanted a cat or a dog, and I said NO….absolutely not. I am not committing to picking up poo every day for the next 20 years for anymore creatures. I already did my time in the diaper brigade—and that time lasts far longer than anyone warns you. So I figured birdz…birdz would be easy, right?

Enter Beyonce-Tweet-Tweet and Baby Blue Cheeks. Their favorite album is Cowboy Carter and the morning after I brought them home, I found out that Beyonce-Tweet-Tweet had the sweetest voice, thus—her name. Baby Blue Cheeks is no slack either, and they are both music snobs. If I turn on an artist that’s not to their liking—they stop singing immediately. The prettier the voice and the more musicality there is in the beat—the louder they tweet, like they are calling out to a bird friend. They bonded like the best sisters ever, and they were happy—for awhile. But then Baby Blue Cheeks started escaping, because I think she was lonely. She needed more of a tribe than she had.

On the way home from school pickup one evening I checked out the pet shop down the road and found out that they had boy birdz! Boyz! So I went home to think about it, set up an extra cage, carefully picked out the one bird I was SURE was a boy and the one girl he seemed best bonded to and brought Kong and My Little Mustard Seed home.

And then there were four.

Baby Blue Cheeks was so happy at finding a tribe that I went ahead and let them join together in one cage after only a couple of days, and that seemed to work out well for a couple of weeks. She was at the top of her game, corralling her brood and keeping them safe, always on the lookout above them. Then I noticed something strange—Beyonce Tweet-Tweet, that lil ho, had abandoned her sister for some random man who just appeared off the street. I was surprised because I thought Kong and Mustard seed were bonded—and they were. It just turned out—they were not bonded as mates.

As Beyonce and Kong became more and more attached, and they hung out with Mustard to the exclusion of Baby Blue Cheeks, I felt bad for my favorite little Blue Baby and wondered why Mustard didn’t seem more bothered that Beyonce was making the moves on her man.

In fact, I started to get confused because Mustard was not only nonchalant about losing her mate, she was acting like a boy. The Boy Birdz, you see, just sit there and sing. All. Day. Long. And that’s all Mustard wanted to do: sing.

I had to look it up, and I realized that while the usual way one determines the sex of a budgie is by the color of their cere, Mustard was carrying a whole ding-dang gene mutation. He LOOKED like a girl, but that gene mutation just confused us humans. He was most certainly a boy. I thought Beyonce-Tweet-Tweet was making it clear about Kong—The Boy is Mine! But it turned out I had two girls and two boys, and Beyonce had laid claim to BOFFA-DEM leaving little Baby Blue Cheeks out in the cold. But I didn’t know that for awhile, so back when I thought I had three girls, one boy and two traitors (cause who doesn’t love Baby Blue Cheeks?????)…I thought maybe the answer was MORE BIRDZ. MORE BOY BIRDZ. Cause then, Baby Blue Cheeks would have a companion, right?

Enter Earl and Grey.

At this point in the timeline, I think I have three girls and three boys, and I’m wondering why Mustard is still acting like a boy and then I realize how freaking LOUD these birds are, even though Beyonce and Baby Blue Cheeks have stopped doing as much singing—cause that’s what the girlz do when the boyz show up—they shut up and let the boyz get to work dazzling them.

And I swear to all that is holy, these boyz are louder than 20 parakeets.

THEN I figure out that Mustard is, indeed, a boy—and he is LEADING THE WHOLE PACK in song, all day, every day. That one—he sings even in his sleep. IN HIS SLEEP, Y’ALL!!!

Then Baby Blue Cheeks rallies. She decides she’s taking her position as top dog back, and her and Beyonce start having these EPIC BATTLES where they FLY at each other and bump chests, mid-air!

Ok, maybe it wasn’t quite that aggressive. They were flying at each other, but in the cage. And they weren’t hurting each other, they just seemed to be figuring out who could knock the other one down to the bottom of the cage first. And they started fussing at each other. And Baby Blue Cheeks didn’t seem quite as lonely, but she was also, obviously, no longer in charge. The boyz took over, like boyz sometimes tend to do.

I figured Baby Blue Cheeks would eventually find some company with Earl or Grey, but that Earl—he’s a chubby one who don’t like to do nothing but stay at the top of the cage and sing. And sleep. Mostly sleep. A lot. And Grey—he’s pretty active and I have high hopes for him. But he’s still very young and I’m not sure Baby Blue Cheeks has time to get him up to speed. She doesn’t really seem interested in doing all that work, and who can blame her?

Kong, though, is older—a ladies man, and everyone wants him! I think Mustard might even have a little crush—cause he certainly isn’t interested in the girls, but with Beyonce in the mix, don’t nobody got a chance. Mustard is hers whether he wants her or not—and as long as he can sing, he doesn’t seem to mind that much. But that suave Kong is apparently irresistible, so every once in awhile, while Beyonce is busy eating, or singing, or escaping the cage because she thinks she’s in charge now and can just leave out the cage whenever I turn my back—every once in awhile, Baby Blue Cheeks pals up to Kong, hoping to get kisses and some of that sweet, sweet birdsong, just for her.

I’m looking up at what I wrote and I’m beginning to think that bird ladies may not, technically, be completely sane.

Y’all pray for me, you hear?