SuperWeed

Yesterday, I said goodbye to a parrot. The quaker parrot (monk parakeet) known as Greenbird spent several weeks here at the Eastern Shore Sanctuary while waiting for a ride to a parrot sanctuary. We took her outside during the days, where she interacted with the chickens from within her cage. In the evenings, we carried her into the library and let her out of her cage within the safety of that closed room, where no dogs or cats could get at her. Now there will be no cages for her at all!

Aviary at Project Perry Central Virginia Parrot Sanctuary

Greenbird had spent the last three years in a cage, being fed badly and receiving very little attention from a reluctant caregiver. Before that, she might have gotten better food and a little more attention, but was still confined in a cage with no parrot companionship. Now she will be surrounded by parrots, including a few of her own species!

Geenbird and I became very close while she was here. Sometimes, I don’t know how, I will suddenly know what a nonhuman animal is feeling, even when there are no behavioral clues to tell me. All at once, an insight that is both thought and feeling will come over me. As soon as the thought/feeling comes into my mind/heart, the animal will react in the same way that people react to empathy: by being soothed and drawing closer.

That’s what happened with Greenbird. One day soon after s/he (we didn’t know which) arrived, I was standing near the cage, wondering if I ought to try to interact with this unfamiliar bird. All at once, the words “she feels shy” came into my head and my heart reached out as it would to a shy child. Immediately, she drew nearer to me. It wasn’t long before she was sitting on my shoulder, brushing her head against my lips, trying to groom me, or joining me in long, improvised concerts of the kissing noises that I have since learned are commonly made by her kind of bird.

She felt my feelings too. One day, I was on the telephone in the library, talking about something that was very upsetting to me but not expressing my feelings. I was talking quite quietly and sitting very still. Meanwhile, Greenbird went crazy, screeching and attacking her toys in a way that she had never done before and never did again.

All of which is to say that I was very sad to say goodbye to Greenbird, even though I am very happy that our leavetaking took place at the Project Perry Central Virginia Parrot Sanctuary.

Let me tell you about our trip. Eastern Shore Sanctuary cofounder Miriam Jones and I decided to drive her ourselves after every ride we arranged for her fell through. Dumb, dumb vegans that we are, we forgot to pack lunch for what turned out (thanks to a 40 mile traffic jam on I-95) to be a twelve hour road trip from Princess Anne, Maryland to Louisa, Virginia and back. (Sanctuary helper Christopher took care of things here while we were gone.) So, throughout the tedious drive, we were dreaming of the organic sandwich bread, soy bologna, peanut butter, jam, and fresh fruit back home. When we finally did get back, the first thing I did (after joyously greeting the dogs) was pick some cucumbers from the garden for a quick salad to counteract the junk from rest stops that we had to eat to keep from losing consciousness during the drive.

Greenbird rode in a cat carrier in my lap. She wasn’t very happy about it but was calm. I had been telling her for days about the happy times ahead of her at the parrot sanctuary and I kept talking to her during the drive. I think she could feel the genuine happiness that I felt as I imagined the happiness she would feel flying around with parrots like herself. Plus, she had grown to trust me and could feel my confidence that everything was going to be okay.

It is! Now that I’ve visited the Project Perry parrot sanctuary, I know that she’s going to be happy there. She’ll have to be in a quarantine cage for a few weeks, but it’s a spacious cage filled with perches and toys in a room with plenty of other birds who are either in quarantine or receiving veterinary care. And, I’m sure she’s going to make friends. Before getting there, we had no way of knowing if she would turn out to be bird aggressive. I didn’t think so, since she had been imitating the chickens and the wild birds while she was here, but we didn’t know for sure until she calmly rode on my shoulder as we walked through some of the indoor aviaries at the sanctuary, meeting some of the birds who may soon be her friends. And, although she was a bit shy, she wasn’t scared of or aggresive toward Matt, who runs the sanctuary.

Now let me tell you about Matt Smith and his wonderful sanctuary, which deserves your support. Matt came out to greet us when we drove up, immediately complimenting our “go vegan” bumpersticker. I remembered seeing him at some of the annual AR conferences. At the sanctuary, he is in his element. I’ve rarely seen such a perfect match between person and avocation. Matt was wonderfully relaxed and grounded as he took us on a brief tour before getting Greenbird settled into her new home.

The first thing we saw was a beautiful perching area that Matt had just constructed from the branches of a birch tree that had recently been trimmed. Then Matt walked us around the outdoor aviaries (also constructed by Matt) in which many of the birds live during the many warm months there in central Virginia. The stories of some of the birds in those aviaries were heartbreaking. We saw two birds who from a bird mill who had been confined for many years in a small cage to breed pet shop birds. They had a whole outdoor aviary to themselves, as they were scared of everybody, especially people. Just seeing us several feet away was very frightening to them. Back indoors we met a very large parrot called Callie, who had been so neglected that her body looked like a battery hen’s. She was very talkative and affectionate, cuddling close to my heart as I held and petted her. She liked Miriam a lot too.

Callie

At the Perry Project website, you can see plenty of pictures and read the stories of several of the birds.

By the way, I wrote this post while listening to the Sunday Best on WEMU-Ypsilanti. I used to listen to Sunday Best nearly every weekend when I lived in Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti and I still tune in online whenever I remember. The host, Dr. Arwulf Arwulf , is an A2/Ypsi institution, having spun tunes on the radio and written in progressive publications since the 1970s. His Sunday show highlights early modern jazz, coverning African American music from the first half of the twentieth century with a focus on the 1920s. It’s an education and a blast!

My own taste in jazz runs more to bebop but, over the years, I’ve developed a real appreciation of early modern jazz from listening to Sunday Best. This week, Arwuf played several topical sets on the themes of root vegetables and fences. I was especially amused by the Big Eye Louis Nelson Delisle tune “Black Cat on the Fence,” since we see plenty of that around here at the sanctuary, where six of the cats are black. Unfortunately, he also spun Slim Galliard’s “Potato Chips,” which made me sick thinking about yesterday’s highway junk food fest.

On the upside, as he does every year at this time, Arwulf took some time away from the tunes to talk about how fireworks scare animals, to discourage their use, and to remind people with cat and dog companions to give them extra care on the fourth of July.

Thanks, Arwulf!
Thanks, Matt!
Goodbye, Greenbird — I’ll miss you!

July 1st, 2007 | Category: Animals, Birds, Music, Sanctuary | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL