Can't hold up a Free Spirit

Turning his back on Us is her way of saying 
"You don't own me, you never did, you never will".

It started with a evening walk near to the local pet store on Feb-20.

(Birds Chirping loud)

Me: Shall we go and check out some aquariums again?

My husband: (Looks at me with a stare of "what r u up to now??) Umm… Let's go.

Kids: Let's go... Let's go…

Everything in the shop gets the same expression from kids. "Wow.. so cute… can we have them?"

In few mins, we are out with a new travel-cage and two Budgies, Boy and girl.

What are we thinking???

Only thought was to give these poor fellows some more freedom and a better home. Idea is to keep them in the balcony where we have a transparent pigeon net which we thought will stop them and also give them enough room to stretch the wings. Did we know anything about birds? Naah zero. It is just what they call impulse buy.

Promptly, Lasya named them TweTwe and Rex. Carefully brought them to the flat, kept the cage in balcony. It is already night and they are sleepy.

Now, started googling.

The First day

Immediate observation is that Rex was OK with human presence and doesn't complain if food is offered with finger or even touching it. TweTwe is very rude and it bites.

After whole night of reading forums, I am ok but my hubby got skeptical about the new members of the house. Morning, all through his puja, they were chirping and he couldn't bear any longer that the birds are in such a little cage. We decided to let them out in the balcony.

Realisation 1. These stupid birds are Cage bred and they don't know what coming out of cage means. The cage door is open till afternoon but nothing happened. Then I literally pulled Rex out of the cage. After few more hours, Rex only somehow convinced TweTwe to come out.

We could feel the excitement the poor birds are having, being able to fly probably for the first time in their lives. Within 11*11*6 space but big enough for such small ones. We are tensed whenever they landed on the net. Obviously the net holes are 1" side and very big for a budgie. But no, they didn't go out. By evening we are pretty sure, they don't know how to squeeze themselves out.

Beautiful camouflage.

They played with the plants. Flew to the top of the clothes rope, nibbled the twigs, hid behind the pots. 

Finally then came down scrambling for their staple food: grass seeds.  

Realization 2: Forget about all that you read in google about budgie foods, these birds don't eat anything else. Period.

By 6, sharp, they climbed to the top of the clothes rod, squeezed into the pulley string and slept there.

Rex's gone

Rex's gone. Just two days and he is such a pet. He left at night. Just gone. TweTwe is clueless. All of us are stunned. 

Only clue left is a small feather piece in the net.

Searched all around the apartment. No clue. Even if it wanted, it may not be able to find its way back to our flat. After all we are in 10^th floor. 100 feet above the ground Budgies probably don't even fly that high.

Ravi felt Happy. Yep really. His theory is correct that we are not really caging them. They are free to go when they want and importantly when they can. For once, I agreed.

We worried about the other one.. Immediately told my husband to return it back.

Maybe poor one is lonely.

It stuck to the net carefully listening to the bird sounds from outside. May be it is hearing Rex shouting from somewhere. We'll never know.

But all that grief is soon gone when TweTwe started coming to us almost immediately. 

In a day, things looked quite exciting. TweTwe started playing with us now. Landing on the shoulder, Pecking at our food.. 

Kids are Super excited

Kids feeding it. Overfeeding it. But she didn't bother. it always came when it saw food.

This is their early morning routine at 6 am. Both of them read the news paper together.

TweTwe got all the toys

We tried to entertain him with all the simple stuff that we could think of.

Are you a real bird? can I kiss you? Naah..

The little one tried really hard to pet the bird.

It got all kinds of places to live.

This nest survived 1 day. TweTwe chewed off the bottom cardboard beyond repair.

The great Discovery

One scary night scene.

It is midnight and suddenly saw that TweTwe is on the net almost half outside. I pulled it out put him in the cage and closed it. But why????

Then came the great discovery..

TweTwe was not running away. There is a football ground next to our apartment and they play whole night especially weekends with full flood lights ON. This poor bird if it gets disturbed at night, flies towards the brightest light and that promptly was on the other side of the net. That is why Rex flew off too? Possible because that night Rex left, it is Shivaratri and along with these floodlights, the temple lights are are also bright. Poor Rex, we thought it outsmarted us.

From then, we started catching it and putting it in cage every night. That in itself is a great exercise. Breaking our heads for a long time, Ravi hanged a curtain on the net. It worked, saving us lot of trouble of catching the bird every evening.

Rex2

A month passed and we thought this poor one is getting lonely. I went to the same shop and bought a male budgie. Lasya called him Rex again. One bad thing is, Rex2 has a handicapped leg. I didn't notice it in the shop. We thought it is because his cage fell when we got him home. Took him to a vet but he said that is a old/ birth defect.

TweTwe is excited.

Even Rex2, rarely landed on Ravi's hand. Only his. And that's it. Never interacted with people.

Bye Bye Rex2

This continued for a full month. Rex2 is making TweTwe too unresponsive. All day both sit on the top perch grooming scratching. We finally lost patience and gave Rex2 back to the shop.

We contemplated for long on this. But still gave it back. We can justify that Rex2 is not friendly but it hurts when I think one of the reason that poor bird lost our love because he is handicapped. This guilt may haunt for some time.

Back to more games

Rex2 gone, TweTwe is back to herself. Our pity on her loneliness got her more toys.

This pot is a great addition but she hardly ever used it.

Most favourite toy. The tube tunnel

Taking Selfies

Grand pa's pet too.

The home setup. Ravi came up with a plan to keep her evening food in the cage itself. It worked and he started coming into the cage and curling up inside to sleep. The whole headache of catching it in the evening is gone. Happy to see it is feeling it is cage as its home.

One Problem... All day it sits there.This is what happens when you give a mirror to a girl. 😏

Ever dirty beak. It likes eating mud and picking seeds from pots. My hubby is at times furious that it is chewing up the bark of his curry-leaf plant and biting off all new saplings.

Posing for photos and teasing Eagles in the morning. The eagles used to swoop into the balcony only to find a net and fly away disappointed. This one flew up and shouts back at them.

Now, We determined that this one has to be taught some basic life skills. The grass seeds are too fertile and grew in no time. Ravi grew few grass plants and raised corns. Initially it didn't bother but after the corns came out, it is a big attraction to her.

One basic life skill. How to get that 🌽. After two full days of staring like that, she figured out the most destructive way. Land in the branch, break it and collect the corn from the floor. 

No wonder Most of the countries consider Budgies as farm pests.

Another boy

Again, a bug in the head started saying that this bird is lonely and for a creature that supposed to live in big groups in its native country, keeping one is a crime. I went again and got another male bird and this time made sure he is healthy. 

And the name White.

And after getting him home, he seemed much younger than TweTwe. But he is very active although never ever came to us. TweTwe is not interested in him at all. Nor he. She still preferred playing with us. 

Somehow we never took a photo of White.

The D day

One day we felt we should separate White and twe twe so that White will come near us. Bad decisions. We moved TweTwe to next balcony. He looked confused in New setup. We went out for couple of hours.

And TweTwe is gone. :-(

Frantically searched the whole apartment but unless it comes to us on its own, there is no chance to find such a small bird in the wild. In 2 hrs tt could be anywhere in 20km radius.

What an unceremonious way to depart. We felt like Mr.Pi.

I still cannot understand how she could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. The pain is like an axe that chops my heart. "
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

It is for sure, that small bird cannot survive this Harsh world for long. But we did see budgies near the lake behind the apartment. And I hope I taught her how to fetch grass corns. If she went towards the lake, there is some tiny chance that she is alive may be find a friend.

We can only pray for that.

Turning his back on Us is her way of saying "You don't own me, you never did, you never will".

I am upset for a week. Kids forgot about him in a day. Lasya even gave me a philosophical answer that TweTwe will now find more friends and be more happy. Haah…Wish so.

"I've never forgotten her. Dare I say I miss her? I do. I miss her. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart.

 "I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go, but what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye."
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi