Sonny

"That little bird must be absolutely terrified," I said. "You've got it in with its most feared predator." The officer's eyes immediately glazed over and her mouth shrunk from a smile to an irritated slit.

I can't seem to drive past an animal control facility without stopping in to ask if they have any birds. While I don't need anymore birds, most city animal control officers I've met, either know nothing about birds and/or don't care about their feathered charges. So, on this day in September of 2002 I found "Boogie", a black, white and blue "female" Budgie whose owners had returned to Hong Kong. She was in a tiny cage that had been put in an empty box cage in the cat room. Five minutes and $5.25 later, Boogie and I were on our way home.

Despite Boogie's small size and pink cere, she acted more male than female. so when a Budgie breeder told me that you cannot use cere colour in a colour mutation budgie to determine gender, "Boogie" became "Sonny". And when the  Phillips' quarantine was over, he moved in with our other Budgies.

Just as an aside, when I refer to the Phillips' quarantine, I mean our best attempt to minimize the risks of a new bird introducing disease to our existing flock. I know that without a totally separate air supply for the new bird, some risk exists. But we have a super duper air filter on the furnace and an
Austin Healthmate air cleaner in the bird room. New birds stay in the dining room for 45 days before moving to the bird room on the second floor. And all new birds get vet-checked.

Now, as Budgies go, Sonny wasn't remarkable. But he was beautifully coloured and marked. He wasn't very interested in us; he was much  more interested in the other Budgies, particularly the females. He would  "step-up" like a perfect little gentleman when out of the cage. We think his previous owners had spent time with him and handled him frequently. Fully flighted, he'd follow Ozzie, our other male Budgie, from cage to cage and back and forth the length of the bird room. He didn't talk but happily added his voice to the Budgie gab-fest. He didn't bite and always let Daisy, his new-found mate, eat first.

I don't spend a lot of time with our Budgies and they don't get out of their cage every day. But they do have a large cage with an abundance of toys. They always have pellets available and water for bathing as well as for drinking. They get a breakfast of veggies, grains, greens and pasta and a late afternoon snack of millet or bread. We talk to them often and delight in their antics and chatter. so it was with some concern that I noticed Sonny sleeping, with his head tucked in on the bottom of the cage. Then I was relieved to see him eating and interacting as usual. His weight dropped a couple of grams. Over a period of a couple of weeks I became increasingly uneasy as Sonny continued to rest on the bottom of the cage. When his weight dropped another few grams I telephoned Dr. Sawyer. To my dismay Dr. Sawyer was away and I was referred to another avian vet. I got an appointment there for the following morning. Of course, that was the day of one of the worst snowstorms of the winter. But away we went anyway. I was surprised when the vet said that Sonny was indeed a female, not a male and I was relieved that Sonny's weight was not a concern. But I was skeptical when he said that Sonny had probably lost a dominance struggle with an older Budgie, namely Daisy. I returned home with a lighter heart and a "tonic" for Sonny. That was in January.

Sonny regained some weight and once again seemed fine. But a few weeks later his weight began to drop again. Again, everything else appeared okay; he was eating and active. Then one evening last week I was reading Rosemary Low's' book, Cockatoos In Aviculture. The birds were already "in bed". I read that one sign of a sick bird is food adhering to the beak and felt sick as I recalled seeing pellet remains on Sonny's beak that very afternoon. The next morning I arose to find Sonny on the bottom of the cage; he had died during the night.

I know that when one has done their best by their companion, there's no need to feel guilty. But I still wonder if I should have acted more quickly and decisively. Perhaps I should have listened better to my instincts when they told me something was wrong. Maybe. In any event, this second loss in a month weighs heavily on my heart.

Post Script: A post mortem failed to reveal the cause of Sonny's death but did confirm his "male-hood".

March 2005