from the pen of icarus blake

Back in January, I coalesced to my partner and agreed to a pet I never gave much of a thought to keeping: birds.  So, in the midst of a brutal cold snap (-10F), we went and acquired two parakeets from Petco.

I know nothing about birds, about keeping birds, about bird breeders.  I trusted him to make the best decisions in this case.  We took them from a cramped display with no small amount of effort, their wings clipped so they were running like little raptors on the wood chip bedding, then brought them home, and settled them in a much larger cage with fresh food.  For a month, we let them adjust.

Once they stopped shying away from us, we opened up the cage.  Let them wander at their own pace, explore a bit.  In this time, my partner discovered that birds from Petco are notorious for never quite becoming tame — I’m not surprised, given the conditions they’re kept in.  My philosophy is that birds are intelligent, communicative, and will eventually approach you on their own if you don’t pressure them.  While I found this philosophy to be correct, I was unfortunately the first person the birds chose to interact with.

My partner was not happy about that.

Before you worry this threw a wrench between us, it did not.  He adjusted his approach, fed them every morning, and now (four months on) the birds will approach him quickly.  They aren’t friendly, by any means, but they’re happy to tolerate our presence while they hang out with one another and explore the floor.

My hope is that they’ll trust us by the time their flight feathers grow back in, but we’ll see.  I do like them a lot.