Feathered Friends

It has been a difficult time for my friend D___. He lost his wife last year after a heroic fight with pancreatic cancer. It was a struggle that saw a brave and humble woman beat the odds against the nasty killer for several years before she finally succumbed.

D___ and his wife were bird people. Bird people are different then the rest of us. Like fish people. My friend Corrie is a birder. To be able to syncopate your head and emotions with an avian or gill bearing aquatic vertebrate (or craniate) animal that lacks limbs with digits (wickipedia's definition, not mine) is a talent that is beyond my comprehension. My parents had a Mexican Red parrot and a macaw when I was young but they were a mere decoration. I tried lovebirds for a short period but could never make the emotional connection. Ditto the fish tank, a pursuit that required more maintenance than I was capable of offering in order to stave off that dastardly ick. I personally align more with dogs and cats.

D___ and Corrie have a different and deeper relationship with their feathered friends and I salute them. To me it just looks like work. There is a dealer in my line of business and a customer at the shows, a wealthy man who collects glass, who like to let the birds ride upon their shoulder whilst they walk around the halls, the birds gleefully crapping upon their jackets all the while. It looks disgusting to me, the greenish white trail of bird shit, but my squeamishness might just be another indicator of my general lack of depth as a human being.

D___ lost his cockatoo a few months ago. He had the bird for over 32 years and it is another significant loss, this death in the family. He tells me that I would have loved the bird and I have to take him at his word. He said that the bird was gentle and loving and I am sorry I never met the bird.

I have been on the lookout for a new bird for D. If you know of a nice bird that needs a good home, please contact me.

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I ran into D___ having coffee this morning and he mentioned that he had heard a ruckus outside his home the other day and went to investigate the commotion. He said that the noisemaker was a small relation in the toucan family, possibly an araçari, jumping around in his bushes.  He and a friend dropped a net over the visitor from the heavens and he is now taking care of it.

I went online and we discovered that the bird is most probably a close relative of the araçari, the guyana toucanet, with its red lower beak. We read up on the bird and it even eats avocados, a Fallbrook staple, the whole bird family emanating from Southern Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.

I drove over today around lunchtime and met D___'s other bird, a yellow somethinged amazon that he has had for over 34 years. Nice enough bird, not much of a talker. Also got acquainted with the toucanet, a bird he now calls toocoo. And here he or she is.

Really a very lovely bird, likes melon and grapes. If the owner doesn't surface looks like my pal has made a new friend. Seems ordained by the bird gods.