Whadda ya do when the Bird of Paradise lands in your hair?
I was doing laundry in our ground floor garage of the building (still in Honolulu) when a set of claws landed on my head and about gave me a heart attack! I brushed it off, but it came back again. After the second freakout I got a glimpse of green fluttering bird, and when it landed on my head a third time I was ready for it. I threw a shirt over my head and scooped up the bird in the shirt and brought it up to the apartment. He’s a green-cheek Conure… small parrot species. I had him loose in the apartment for two days before getting a cage and supplies for him. Looked on Craigslist and papers for ‘lost and found’ but no bird notices around. He has a closed-band indicating he is domestic, Hawaii bred in 2014. So he’s two years old. I presume it is ‘He’ from the behavior, but with these you cannot tell by looking. Takes a blood/dna test to be sure… not important unless you’re going to breed them.
So I got adopted by the bird. Learning all I can about caring for him. Named him ‘Pepe’. He is VERY human-bonded and watches me everywhere in the room, and calls when we ignore him too much. He wants out of the cage so he can fly over and sit on my shoulder. I suspect he was a docile, hand-fed bird with a lot of ‘shoulder time’ when he was juvenile. Now at age two, the maturity hormones are kicking in and he is restless and irritable like never before. He probably flew out someone’s door when they least expected it. Plus he is molting now, so is itchy with his feathers coming in. My friends and I are trying to modify his ‘screechy’ calls with some other spoken words and lesser ‘chirps’. He’s learning… slowly.
One conure website said it is like having an “attention-deficit, Hyperactivity-disorder, two-year-old with a loud whistle and pliers”…. and that’s the truth!
I remember that Mrs. Wanka has a Conure that is bonded to her, and won’t let Wanka near. But probably a little more mature and docile than this little hyperactive boss.
They are very ‘beaky’, feeling and tasting everything, and he still has to learn what is ‘too hard’ of a nip at bare skin. It’s a grooming instinct with us… his ‘flock’ of bigger birds. But he’s got to learn not to pinch skin yet. I have to put on my hoodie when I let him out to crawl on me. So he’s bonding to me as I’m the one daring enough to take him out for a little fun and exercise every day or two. Then I need the iodine for the bird bites.
But he demands attention any time I pass the cage. He loves to have his beak stroked and his head scratched! He will press his head against the cage and goes into a pleasure trance when I stroke his beak and head. But he is still ‘nippy’ if you are not careful.
He’s a reluctant flyer… not to escape, but always looking for a human to land on. I haven’t the heart to clip his wings… that would be the beautiful blue wingtips he has. He’s just too pretty like that. So we carefully manage his flight indoors.
Hand-fed, weaned young ones from the breeder here are $150. Mature ones like Pepe’ go for around $400. He eats cheap… so I guess I’ll keep him. With his domestic bird-band I can ship him overnight cargo to the neighbor islands OK, so he will be coming to the ranch with me later on.
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