Hi,

One of the previous Birds site's editors had a subject category titled "Remarkable Birds" in which she or contributing editors wrote articles about their special birds. I think that is a super idea as there are so many birds out there worthy of praise and acknowledegement.

Hence, I would like to continue and expand that subject.
So, if you have or know of any REMARKABLE birds, present or past, that you would like to write about in terms of their unique personalities, amazing behaviors, their overcoming adversity, special aptitudes, interesting interactions with other pets or humans..., please contact me either through the forum mail of the Birds sites contact form.

Or you could relate your special bird stories here in the forum. Looking forward to hearing about your birds!

WHAT BIRDS DO YOU KNOW THAT DESERVE TO BE FAMOUS?

My Congo African Gray parrot is deceased now.....she died instantly from an aneurysm behind her eye at only 17 years old a couple of years ago. Thankfully I was not around to see it happen, but she is dearly missed.

When she was young she would perch on my hand. I would jerk my hand upwards and tell her to "flip". She would jump up and backwards with wings flapping, do a backflip, and then land nice and straight with her feet on the floor facing me.

She was a character, my sweet Jasper girl. I could hug and kiss her, but I was the only one who could do that with her.

Hi Debbie and all,

Your sweet Jasper girl sounds like that she was a "remarkable" sentient being. My orange-fronted parakeet, half-moon conure, Payno, is the same way, hugging and kissing wise, as I am the only living being that he is affectionate towards-everyone or everything else is either persona non grata or anima non grata to him.

Hello everyone,

Well Les I am not sure if my story belongs here but at the same time I think it does. You will have to make up some of the details as it is a childhood story for me and I have forgotten bits of it and certainly some of the facts, like when, and what kind of chicken, and how old etc. so I will make up some stuff but essentially it is a true story.

I grew up on a small plot in the midst of a predominantly maize tobacco and cattle farming community so we got to live a lot of life that belonged to farmers and all and small 'village' mentality and events. I was very lucky and had a charmed childhood for the most part (except for the bit when I had to go away to boarding school) and as was wont, whenever we came home on holidays we had the Sunday roast along with roast potatoes and peas and carrots and those gravies and trifles - are they easily forgotten? No, I do not think so!

My Mom was a courageous and hardworking person along with my Dad and she turned her hand to so much, including growing coffee, pineapples, fruit orchids, house building or raising pigs and sheep or running commercial general stores for the farming community and a lot more. Well, inevitably, we also farmed chickens.

Her pigs all had names and I know she talked to them - I swear when she went to feed them, she would call ahead and they would respond by grunting and snorting (if that is what enormous sows do) and she would commune with all her animals this way.

And yes this is actually a bird story. Just want you to imagine the setting.

Of course the meat for Sunday was mainly home grown including the chickens and turkeys and ducks and lamb for Christmas and other celebrations etc etc and so on.

It was just that this one chicken could speak human I think, or had a remarkable ability to use esp or something. Whenever it came for chicken time and to choose a bird for the pot, Fanny-by-Gaslight (yep that was her name) would squawk a lot, run around in 'square circles' flapping wings then disappear. Where she diappeared to no one could say, she just disappeared. Well this frustrated many a chance the chicken guy had trying to follow my Mom's instructions.

Mom would often tell Gaston, go get Fanny today and he would return saying she was nowhere to be found. Of course my Mom would tell him to stop talking nonsense and go and get the bird and again and again he would return to say that no, the Fanny bird was not to be found. Then she would go see for herself, see the bird lurking and flapping wings, call out to Gaston to go and GET THAT BIRD, I have just been down to the coop and seen it, so move it and go get it. And again he would come back, shake his head and say no, the bird was not there.

Well as kids we loved this game (we thought it was a game!) and joined in. Sometimes I would go down to the coop with Gaston and sometimes with my Mom, so I saw both sides of the story as it were. Well in the end my Mom would choose another bird and that would be that until the next time. This went on for about 2 years as I remember, and thinking now as I write, I must have been 9 or so, so this would have been early 50s.

Well Fanny would appear again in the evening and poor old Gaston had to account for why that darn hen was still around not producing eggs and just making a noise and eating and taking up space etc. My Mom once told us that she waited in the area to see where Fanny went to, but couldn't or didn't and swore that after chicken time, when she did appear, there was a cockerel-type swagger to her walk which seemed more pronounced and that there was a glint in her eye that said 'You won't catch me!' along with a measured cluck clucking.

Indeed, my Mom never did, and she never made the pot did Fanny. She had my Mom beat and in the end Mom just didn't choose her.

Gaston came one day to call us and to say that Fanny had died of old age and asked permission to bury 'this clever bird' who had beaten him too and made him 'stupid' with frustration. He wanted to bury her with respect as he said the meat would be tough and a mean meal. I remember that day, my Mom just shook her head and said something like 'whatever'.

Who knows what he did do with that dead bird, but I am sure she was buried and certainly, did avoid the pot. I remember too that he never worked out where the bird went to or hid either. Funny that. My Mom used to say Gaston's bird in the end so maybe he was an enabler, but if so, then he would have had to have been smart as sometimes he and Mom would go together to look for the chicken. Anyway, up to today, I swear that Fanny was the smart one and just refused to be one for the pot!

Well, that is my simple but very long 'remarkable bird story.'

Thanks for the memory Les and for the opportunity of being able to tell it! I would be interested in hearing from a free-range-chicken-farmer out there if these birds are smarter than we think.

Cheers now,

Lestie, thanks for a delightful pig, er, I mean bird story. So glad to hear that the remarkably clever, resourceful and resilient Fanny never made the pot.

In Churintzio, many people keep chickens and roosters. On my way to "Cemetery Pond" to bird, almost daily I see in the same pen as a herd of goats these gorgeous "bules roosters."

Les.....Jasper was indeed a great bird. I really do miss her. I had to give her to a friend of mine who is an excellent bird owner and has parrots of her own. I was getting divorced, moving, and I could not take Jasper where I was going.

My friend could not keep Jasper either because she had no more room for another cage in her bird room. She brought Jasper to a friend of hers who had some African Grays, and I thought Jasper would be happy there. The agreement was that if I was ever able to have Jasper again I could take her back.

I heard that Jasper was very upset for a while to be without me. I had had her since she was 4 months old and I finished up her handfeeding. We spent 17 years together. Jasper finally did make friends with the other parrots and she was laughing and talking just before she fell off her perch and died. Jasper only lasted 2 months without me. I wonder to this day if the stress of our separation helped her death along.

I enjoyed her so much when she was mine. Sometimes life throws you curveballs and you have to give up the things that are most dear to you. May she rest in peace, my sweet bird.

Lestie.....that was a fantastic story. Thanks for sharing it. I absolutely LOVE chickens.

I once had the privilege of raising two baby chicks. I also have cared for a friend's chickens while she was away on vacation. I really enjoyed gathering the eggs, and I think chickens have some of the softest and sleekest feathers, not to mention the wide range of colors they come in.

Last year I worked at a farmstand selling plants, produce, and eggs. One white chicken who was not an egg layer was allowed to run free around the place as a pet. When I had my lunch she would come up to me and I would hand feed her a bit of bread from my sandwich or some pieces of cracker. She was my little friend at work.

Ha! I inherited a love of ordinary and not so ordinary chickens from my Mom and it seems that I have found others who appreciate this! I have a rather nice oil on canvas original painting of chickens pecking around, I have two wire chicken-shaped topiaries with miniature ivy, I have a chicken shaped blackboard for kitchen notes, I have a chicken biscuit basket, I have chicken salt and pepper cruet set, and I have other chicken things hanging around - OH NO, I am turning into a chicken! What now. Ag man, I shall just sit back and enjoy being a touch kitch and carry on finding and growing and living chikeny things. Shh. Please don't tell anyone. Thanks. Talk about Les and his sentient beings, between my Mom's pigs and the Vervet monkeys she saved and her chickens (and my my Dad' lambs), I don't doubt animals have individual characters and can be all seven ... you know Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Dopey, Bashful, Sneezy and Doc and all and all. And why not just add Rudolph's eight too - Dasher, Dancer, Prancer Vixen, Donner, Blitzen, Cupid and Comet! We will just make up our own uses of the names and turn them into adjectives to describe 'my' chickens.

Her Royal Grinningness signing out

Hi Debbie,

Seems a daft thing to say in a way but I think it was Jasper's time and place to die and away from you. I am a bit of a fatalist in that way. She seems to have had a fine life and died surrounded by friends albeit new ones. Remember her with love but let her go with love too.

Send you wholesome thoughts now...
Cheers

Oh dear Debbie,

On re-reading my post above I think my answer was a little too fast and not too carefully thought out. If that is or was your first impression if and when you read it, then I am sorry. I meant it with a much softer heart than it reads, so please take it in that spirit.

I believe she did have a fine life as your bird and perhaps the way it worked out was right - maybe she didn't want to die with you but away from you? Anyway, keep her memory close to your heart but let her go with love - there I say it again, and I wish you luck with this idea.

Bestest

Lestie......no worries. I did not take offense at anything you said. Thank you for your kind words.

When I was first married, my husband had a little Love Bird -- it was either a Lillian's Love Bird, or a Fisher's Love Bird (I am not sure).

This was a very intelligent small parrot and very affectionate. My husband named him 'Bird'.

Because Bird was so cute and smart I always felt he deserved a much more unique and honorable name. Yet any name I came up with just did not fit and he responded to the name Bird -- so, he was never given a unique name. I felt bad about that.

Bird lived with us for five years, previously 5 or 6 years with my husband before we married.

When we moved from an apartment to our first home, Bird became a little depressed and quiet. I had him in the living room where we spent our evenings watching TV. I moved Bird into the kitchen breakfast nook by a morning sunny window. Being a new housewife and a new mother, I spent most of the day in the kitchen. In warm weather, I opened the window by Bird a little so he could get fresh air and hear outside birds. He loved it there and became quite active and very happy. He talked to me a lot, in his own language and would go up and down his tree squawking and playing. When I bathed the baby or fed baby at the table, Bird would watch intently.

In the evenings when the kitchen was quiet Bird was taken into the living room where he could be with family.

When Bird died it was a sad day for us. I never forgot him and would love to get one like him again. Maybe some day....

Thank you, Les, for bringing back some good memories here.

Les, when Burdine was a single bird with us, she was a jazz singer. She would riff with Ella Fitzgerald and get down with Bob Dylan. With the addition of Snickers, she sang less.

Today, she was up to her old tricks. She was really singing with U2. Plus, she was saying, "Beakman, Beakman," in time with the music. Her name is Skye Burdine Beakman Davidson. When she was younger I would call her Beakman a lot, since she liked to use that needle-sharp beak on me.

Thanks all for contributing your remarkable bird stories.

My next article based on my first hand, er, I mean visual and auditory observations of my own birds and some online research is going to be about avian masturbation.

Do you have any experience with your birds masturbating? If you do and relate your observations here, perhaps I could incorporate them into the article that I will be writing in the next couple of days or so.

I find the topic to be both natural (in the wild and in captivity) and fascinating as like many behaviors, it depends on the individual needs and personality of the bird(s).