Today's Update

It's May 9, and it's snowing. I just ordered some covid19 face masks. There are opera singers serenading us about the virus. I won't mention what's going on in politics. But on the positive side, I learned during one of Allison Beavan's Zoom choral workshops how to identify a key signature. (I'm still a little hazy on how to figure out when it's a minor key, but maybe that comes with experience.) Ah, and my laundry is dry. Clean pajamas!

Halle on a Box

So I called the vet, and told her Halle'd laid an egg. She told me that though she'd examined Halle two days prior, there was no way she could have known that there was an egg on the way. Bizarre. Anyway, she also told me that it would be better for Halle's health if she were to not lay any more eggs. Too much of a strain on her body for no good reason. The way to keep her from laying, said the vet, was to limit her hours of sunlight to 8 per day. Just 8! Then she suggested I remove any nesting materials or snuggly toys, and not let her play in a box. The daylight deprivation sounded like the worst, until the news about boxes. Boxes are Halle's favorite toys. Feeling like a cruel human, I did as the vet suggested, though I let her have 9 hours' sunlight. Fortunately it all worked, and there have been no new eggs. Nesting season must be over by now, so I've gradually increased Halle's sunlight, though she never really seemed to mind the limitation. It was all me.

O. M. G.

At Christmastime, I invited my mother, brother and sister-in-law to stay for a couple of days. When they arrived, I greeted them in my cramped foyer, and my sister-in-law, Maureen went upstairs so the rest could come in with their bags and whatnot. I'd left Halle on top of her cage, thinking she'd be fine there for a minute. Wrong. As soon as Maureen got into the living room, Halle darted over and bit her on the back of the neck. She's got that really sharp beak...Poor Maureen actually bled a tiny bit, but was a real sport about it. I felt terrible; Halle hadn't bitten anyone in quite some time. Anyway, the visit went on pleasantly enough, but later, Halle nipped Mom on the wrist. Mortified, I watched her more closely. But I was out of the room the next day when Maureen got a second chomp, this time when she was trying to give Halle a treat. Sigh. This whole biting thing made the visit really stressful, and I couldn't understand why it was happening. Halle likes my Mom, and Maureen hadn't done anything provocative, unless you count her getting too close with the treat. Still, it was as if she were reverting to her very early days with me and she was on a hair trigger. The visit came to an end, and though she didn't bite me, there were several close calls over the next couple of weeks.

Halle is on medicine for her heart (yeah, who knew parrots could have atherosclerosis?) so I had to take her to the vet one Thursday. She had to have bloodwork, get palpated and weighed. I was thrilled that they volunteered to clip her talons. I'm so not going there on my own. But the vet told me Halle was overweight, and what her body profile should look like. I promised to cut back on her pistachios. She got her prescription renewed, and we went home.

Saturday night, after putting her in her cage with her covers on, I left the room. Then I heard squawking and other sounds of distress, including her fluttering her wings and moving down to the bottom of the cage. She does not consider the bottom the cage to be an actual place for a true parrot to be, so I worried. I could hear her stepping onto the edge of her food bowl with those freshly trimmed talons clicking away. Naturally I took off her nighttime covers and looked in to see what was the matter. Did she need food? Had she gotten stuck on a part of the cage or a toy? No. But she was still agitated, flapping around, making upset noises. So I let her out of the cage and put her on my shoulder, not knowing what else to do for her. Still agitated. I was frantic, and knew I wouldn't be able to get a call through to the vet on a Saturday, and I was upset that she'd been checked out just a few days ago, just a little overweight. Then I felt a tiny thump on my shoulder, then heard a bump on the carpet. I looked down and there, rolling along the floor was a perfect little white egg. Halle Macaw, after having lived with me for nineteen years, had laid her first egg.

Overweight indeed.

High Fidelity

Halle Macaw listens to the classical station, something to keep her mind occupied and her mood quiet. Or maybe it's to keep my mind quiet. Hard to say. When I play louder, more upbeat music, she'll holler along. As I've said before, she loves the Hallelujah Chorus. Sometimes she'll hoot and whistle while I'm practicing singing along with my CDs, but she definitely has her favorite frequencies. We had a Magnificat concert, with four different works by that title, and though she seemed to enjoy the Bach Magnificat in D Major, the tessitura of the Rutter Magnificat is just that much higher and apparently much more appealing. And though I can play the CD and get something out of the experience, not so with this parrot. Live music is her thing. 

The same goes for visits. After screaming bloody murder when a guest arrives, she'll have a brief 'Hello' conversation with the new person, then settle in and put on her best manners. Sure, these aren't perfect, but she finds company stimulating, as long as nobody waves their hands around too much to make a point. But recently most of the 'visitors' to the house have been by Zoom, and though I've coached the guests to say Hello in a high animated voice, we get pretty much nil in terms of reaction. Screens just don't make an impression. So she'll sit on my shoulder and groom my face or try to remove my earrings, convincing my friends that either I've got a tame, even dull bird, or that my stories about her are mere fabrication. You'll just have to believe me. Or not.

Rough Transition

Halle and I got to know each other slowly, but we had to learn some things all at once. For instance, my condo is near a parking lot where guys pick up their trucks in the morning and drop them off at night. They're generally good neighbors. But the guys would often wear hoodie sweatshirts. As a fashion statement, I see this as a pretty normal thing. But Halle, upon seeing them going about their business would let out a huge scream, and I mean smoke detector-loud scream, and not stop until I'd shut the blinds or otherwise taken her away from the sight of them. This was very distressing until I figured out she was scared of guys in hoodies because she'd been tormented by guys in hoodies in her original home. Then it was heartbreaking and put me in a rage. But the problem remained. One day when she'd seen a hoodie-wearing, scary man outside, I parked myself in between them and told her very clearly that she was safe, and that these guys couldn't come in, that this was Halle's house. I may have said it a couple of times, since she was screaming. And then from her stretched-to-full-height, shrieking posture and volume, she fluffed out her feathers, hunkered down on my hand and stopped yelling. It was that simple. You are safe, they can't come in, and this is your house.

Another thing the tipped me off that Halle might have been abused was the fact that when I offered her a spoonful of applesauce or yogurt, she'd LUNGE at the spoon, pushing it away with all her tiny strength. She didn't have the same reaction to forks or knives. Spoons were for drugs. Again, heartbreaking and cause for rage. It took weeks if not months before she came to trust that a spoon was just a spoon, and that it might contain a treat, if she played her cards right.

One last sad thing. When she first came to live with me, Halle had nightmares. She'd squawk (not as loudly as at the hoodie guys, but enough to wake me up) and flap her wings, sometimes flapping down to the bottom of the cage during the night. This went on for quite a long time. It wasn't because she was in a strange place, since she was in the same big cage she'd arrived in, and I left the only toy she had right next to her swing perch. She'd clearly bonded with it, snuggling up to it like a friend. She chose the swing with its familiar toy even though she now had new toys and places to perch. No, she had night terrors. She remembered bad things, and they populated her dreams. 

I'm happy to report that guys in hoodies no longer scare her, yogurt and applesauce are tasty, unthreatening treats, and my little dear sleeps through the night.