The Birds of Pandemonium

by Michele Raffin

  Nick had a small parrot on his shoulder. This one was a beauty, about ten inches high, with green feathers and a vibrant red head. The bird was tenderly preening Nick’s hair. My smiling boy was stroking the parrot’s neck and head.

  “Look, Mom, I have a new bird. He likes me. Can I take him home?”

  The vet tech paled. She put the dove back in its carrier and tore out of the room in search of Dr. Varner. I just stared. The boy and the bird looked adorable together, but I quickly launched into every mom’s “not so fast” speech.

  “No, we can’t take a strange parrot home, even if we wanted a parrot. Which we don’t. Besides, if it’s here at the vet’s, it must have an owner. You should know better than to touch someone else’s bird without permission.”

  Nick had a story ready. He insisted that he hadn’t done anything wrong. He claimed that the parrot was the instigator; it had picked the lock on its cage, opened the door, and hopped onto Nick’s shoulder.

  Right.

  “He likes me and he wants to come home with me.”

  That tore it.

  “You expect me to believe he’s talking to you as well? No way you’re taking this or any other parrot home.”

  Nick invoked the recent death of his beloved companion, a sweet golden retriever named Sandy. She had been by Nick’s side all his life. When we had discussed getting another dog, Nick was adamant: He didn’t want one. Never, ever again. Until that moment in the clinic, he hadn’t mentioned Sandy at all in the few months since her death. Clearly I was mistaken in thinking he had worked through his grief. Maternal guilt began to melt my resolve. Maybe a parrot wasn’t a bad pet for a growing boy; I’d heard that these birds can live for decades, so it wouldn’t be likely to die anytime soon. This tame, attentive little bird seemed drawn to our son. It was very tender in its grooming, running its beak down a strand of Nick’s longish light brown hair, cocking its head to look up at Nick’s face.

  My soft-focus reverie dissolved as Dr. Varner rushed into the room with three vet techs. One held a towel, another a large stick, the third a net. Dr. Varner had a tranquilizer syringe. She spoke to the bird in a firm voice charged with concern: “Step off, Amigo!”

  The parrot ignored both her command and the stick that a vet tech was holding out as a perch. Dr. Varner appealed to Nick: “Slowly and carefully, step toward the table so he can hop off there.”

  “Why? He doesn’t want to get off and I don’t want him to either.”

  I was mortified by his defiance and snapped, “Nick, listen to Dr. Varner. You should not have touched that bird.”

  He stuck to his story that it was all Amigo’s doing, and he repeated the tale for the doctor—with embellishments.

  “He kept yelling, ‘Hello, hello,’ at me, so I went to his cage. But I didn’t touch anything. He was the one who opened the door and climbed on my shoulder—didn’t you, bud?”

  Amigo burbled back some parrotspeak, and Nick swore he understood.

  “He says he wants to come home with me.”

  The darn bird was nodding his head. Dr. Varner flinched as he stretched his neck toward Nick’s face and bellowed, “Amigo! Amigo! Amigo!” Then he maneuvered his beak very close to Nick’s ear and spoke into it, loudly and clearly: “I love you!”

  Here’s where the music should have swelled up, boy and bird nuzzling as they walk off into a Technicolor happy ending. In fact, one vet tech was wiping her eyes. Another sighed. Dr. Varner had been quiet for a moment, as if in deep thought. When she spoke again, her voice had a tinge of relief: “Amigo does need a home, Nick. If it’s okay with your mom, he can go home with you.”

  What? It was time for a consultation beyond earshot of boy and bird. Before we left the room, Dr. Varner addressed Nick firmly. “Your mother and I will talk about what is going to happen next, but not while Amigo is on your shoulder. Stand next to the exam table and let him step off.” They both complied right away. As we left the room, the techs stayed and stood sentinel, chatting with Nick about what Amigo liked to eat.

  “Amigo is an Amazon parrot,” Dr. Varner explained once she had closed the door. “With Amazons, it’s not a question of whether, but when, they will bite.”

  My stomach constricted as I pictured the sharp, hooked beak grooming Nick’s hair. It was an easy reach from Nick’s shoulder for Amigo to extract a chunk of cheek—or an eye. Nick must have been too short at the time to see the sign atop the bird’s cage. It bore a crudely drawn skull and crossbones and the warning, DON’T TOUCH. PARROT BITES. If this was indeed a vicious attack parrot, what explained his behavior toward Nick? And why on earth would a talented, responsible vet suggest we take such a creature home?

  Dr. Varner said that she would tell me as much as she knew about Amigo before I made a decision. First, she exonerated my son: “I wouldn’t be surprised if Nick’s story is true. I didn’t figure Amigo for being a lock picker. He’s never tried it before, but some of the other parrots who have been here for a while have been masterly at finding ways to get out of their cages.”

  Okay, he’s smart, observant, and deft as a cat burglar. But about the biting . . . was there a long pattern of it?

  “Amigo is at least twenty-seven years old,” Dr. Varner went on. “All I know of his history is that he had been placed in a bad home after being rescued from an even worse one.”

  Parrots change owners so often that there is a word for it: rehoming. Dr. Varner pointed out that moving between homes was not in itself indicative of a character flaw in the bird; generally the failing is human. Parrots are not easy pets, and people often buy them unaware of what they’re taking on. According to the Humane Society of the United States, the average pet parrot goes through numerous homes just in the first decade of its life. Dr. Varner ventured, “I wouldn’t be surprised if Amigo had a lot more than average.”

  When Amigo had arrived at her clinic with his latest owner, the parrot was very ill and overweight. In fact, he was a fat guy. Overfeeding is a common problem with parrots that get little exercise and are often fed seed diets more calorie-rich than the fruits and berries they would have eaten in the wild. Treats such as sunflower seeds and peanuts are also high in fat. Parrot obesity can cause serious health problems, including fatty tumors and a potentially fatal condition known as hepatic lipidosis, when so much fat is stored in the liver that it can cease to function. It’s distressingly easy to love an exotic bird to death.

  In the years since Dr. Varner first explained Amigo’s weight issues—and as our own flock of parrot adoptees grew—I’ve heard other veterinarians voice frustration with this syndrome. One told me, “Over and over, I’d wonder why a twenty-five-year-old parrot would die of heart disease. They should be living twice that long. Then a necropsy would reveal completely clogged arteries. People may love their birds, but they’re subjecting them to the same factors that exacerbate heart disease in humans—a diet too high in fat and a sedentary lifestyle.”

  Left in Dr. Varner’s care, this parrot was put on a strict diet and a course of antibiotics for several weeks before she judged him well enough to go home. The vet staff left many messages for his owner to come and pick him up, but after a month, there was no response. Dr. Varner realized that no one would be coming to claim Amigo. Once again, he needed a new home.

  She had seen this sad scenario play out before, and not just with birds. Owners unable or unwilling to pay an animal’s bill will never come back to retrieve it. Some intend to abandon the birds from the start. Ever since the first time I saw Dr. Varner with the dying dove, there had always been a few such “exotics” caged in a back room, awaiting homes. Some of them were in woeful condition, having lost most of their feathers from self-plucking, a result of stress. A nearly naked parrot, with its short legs and large head, looks a bit like E.T. A vet must use all her healing arts and a lot of TLC to bring a bird back to an adoptable state of health. Given Dr. Varner’s experience with abandoned patients, the clinic kept a list of people who had inquired about ado
pting a bird. “Special needs” birds—those with disabilities or behavioral issues—sometimes took a few weeks to place. On the other hand, a healthy bird was often settled into a new home after just a few phone calls.

  Amigo was slimmed down and well. He was a bit cranky but manageable. Better still, he was a red-headed Amazon, a species native to northeastern Mexico. Red-headed Amazons had become seriously endangered in the wild owing to illegal trapping and habitat destruction; very few were still available as pets. Dr. Varner had been pretty confident that a bird so robust, handsome, talkative, and rare would be a breeze to place. Potential adopters began arriving immediately. Just as quickly, they headed for the door. One departing prospect suggested a name change. “You ought to call him Rambo.”

  Who isn’t grumpy on a stringent diet and medical treatments? Amigo had become so fed up that he had begun to attack techs who approached just to feed him or clean his cage. He was quick with his beak, and when he struck he managed to draw blood from even the most wary staffers. By the time the adoption visitations began, Amigo would lunge fiercely at any interloper, chest down in attack position, beak wide open. Clearly this often-rehomed little guy had reason to get fearful and feisty at the parade of human gawkers. If anyone came too close to the wire bars on his cage, he would inflict a nasty bite. The warning sign went up when even the most experienced vet techs could not evade the bird’s attacks. They drew lots to determine who would clean his cage.

  The situation had become untenable for Amigo and for Dr. Varner. She had concluded that he was simply not adoptable in his aggressive state. He would have to stay locked up in a veterinary hospital—frustrated, alone, increasingly fierce, and taking up expensive clinic space and staff time. The sad standoff could have lasted for years, even decades.

  Enter Nick, the chosen boy.

  I wondered at the randomness of Amigo’s sudden courtship. Certainly our growing flock at home made me more attuned to and accepting of the emotional lives of birds. But did anyone expect me to believe that a bird with a brain the size of a hickory nut had planned this clever ambush? Dr. Varner seemed convinced that Amigo had taken the initiative in order to improve his own fate. “He probably decided that this time around he was done with bad placements,” she theorized. “It could be he was determined to get a boy, someone young he could train.”

  This sounded daft at the time. Little did I dream that macaws and African grays would come to train me like savvy ringmasters.

  The good doctor also knew my susceptibility to animal hard-luck stories, and she was not above plucking a few heartstrings to make her case.

  “Isn’t it time that Amigo got a real home with someone he loves?”

  Seeing my hesitation, she offered to sweeten the deal. “You don’t have to make a commitment right away. Why not a trial run? Would you take Amigo for a few weeks and see how it works out?”

  For every objection I voiced—more vet bills, expensive food—she had a counter: Several months of free food, plus free vet care for a year. She’d toss in a carrier and a few toys. Finally I caved. When we walked back into the examining room to tell Nick and his new companion the news, the doctor and I agreed on one ironclad condition for Nick: “We can only take Amigo home—on a trial basis—if you promise that you will never carry him on your shoulder.”

  This would become an ironclad Pandemonium rule as well. Given parrots’ biting issues, carrying such birds at arm’s length from vulnerable eyes, noses, and lips is the safest way to go. Dr. Varner taught Nick the proper way to hold the bird on his hand. She demonstrated, putting a hand out for Amigo to step up onto. For the first time in months, he went to her without hesitation. The techs were aghast. Our new carrier had been placed on the table. Nick told Amigo that as soon as he walked into it, we could go home. “You’ll live in my room,” he promised. Amigo strutted briskly toward his deliverance.

  AS AMIGO STEPPED boldly into our lives, the door opened a crack for a growing and raucous convocation of companion-bird rescues. The sanctuary couldn’t have grown as it did if I hadn’t let emotion trump logic—at least sometimes. I listened to my heart that day, enough to hear the longing in my son’s voice. Could I deprive him of a deep and satisfying connection with a needy bird? What could be bad?

  By the time the clinic staffers helped us carry the medicated dove, Amigo, and his accoutrements to the car, I was already thinking about the necessary household adjustments. At that point, all of our birds, about seventy-five, were in the outside aviaries. Now we had a “house” parrot.

  As it happened, we had conducted a lively family debate on parrot ownership just a couple of weeks earlier, when a breeder had offered me an adorable brother-and-sister pair of baby eclectus parrots. The species is native to Australia, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands. As rare “sexually dimorphic” parrots, the eclectus babies were very differently colored: males are vivid green, and females are red and blue. They are valued as companion birds for their intelligence and language acquisition. Our whole family had gone to look at the babies. They were so winsome that instead of invoking the customary mantra (“No more birds!”), Tom and the kids all lobbied for me to bring them home.

  I did pretty extensive research on parrot care shortly after the breeder had offered me the eclectus babies, and I had turned up many reasons to run the other way. A home needs to be parrot-proofed of more potential hazards than generally beset a human baby. Exotic birds can be undone by Teflon pans, scented candles, air fresheners, ceiling fans, an open window. More fun: random pooping and high-decibel screaming—just fine in a jungle canopy but excruciating in a suburban split ranch. I discovered that I would have to cook special meals for the birds and shower with them (or supervise them on specially installed shower perches) at least every other day to clear their feathers of dust and dander. (They are native to rain forests, remember.) They would require an expensive, commodious new cage, a rotation of stimulating new toys, and daily exercise and socialization time. With three rowdy boys and preteen Lizzy in the house, and our multiplying aviaries, I feared for my stamina and my sanity.

  The scariest phrase in the parrot literature—used over and over—was “perpetual toddler.” The analogy fits. While there is great variation between and within avian species, experiments have shown that parrots can understand and speak meaningfully in human languages, follow directions, and do math at the level of an average three- or four-year-old child. Their emotional intelligence is also very well developed. Most studies equate it with that of a two- or three-year-old child.

  Think about it: a preschooler’s lively curiosity plus the mercurial mood swings of the “terrible twos.” Over the family’s pleading, I delivered a loud and emphatic no. Now here I was with a very feisty, serially rehomed parrot—a known biter—on the backseat beside our son.

  For most of the ride home, Nick had been as chatty as I was silent. “You’re gonna love my room,” he said, directing his voice into the carrier. “I’ll fix it up for you.” There were more burbles from Amigo. We were nearly home when I realized another issue I’d forgotten to raise at the vet’s. We had no cage. Nick leaned over and told Amigo not to sweat it. “You’ll live under my bed.”

  It worked for all of us. For the first time in his young life, Nick kept the floor of his room utterly free of clutter “because Amigo might get lost in it.” He mopped up droppings promptly, without complaint. Amigo seemed secure and comfortable housed beneath his beloved. Never an early riser, Nick came to obey his feathered alarm clock. Every morning, Amigo would leave his sleeping spot under the bed, climb up the covers with beak and claws, zero in on Nick’s hair, and groom him until he woke up.

  Nick would try to put him off. “Go away. Go back to sleep.” Amigo was undeterred. If gentle persuasion didn’t work, he would launch a thunderous salvo directly into Nick’s ear: “Amigo! Amigo! Amigo!” The screeches were always the charm: Nick heaved himself up and rushed to the kitchen to prepare Amigo’s breakfast of pellets and fresh fruit. Like so many m
iddle school boys, Nick would have been happy to forgo bathing for days on end. His bird needed to be bathed, though, so he took lengthy showers. Daily. Dr. Varner had not included a special shower perch in our farewell kit, but I found one at a local pet shop.

  Whatever they were doing, boy and bird communicated incessantly. At least that’s what Nick said. I couldn’t understand Amigo’s gravelly natter, so I assumed that Nick was adding his own coloration when he’d say things like, “Amigo was telling me about his day,” or “Amigo was telling me about his life before he found me.”

  When Nick was off at school, Amigo spent a good part of the day beneath the bed, playing with his toys or dozing. Parrots do need plenty of sleep. Once he had settled into the household routine, Amigo began amusing himself with a curious Socratic monologue.

  “Why? Why not?”

  Hearing that small voice inquiring from beneath the bed was pretty cute the first few times the family heard it. We called him our philosopher-parrot. But after a few hundred times, we were muttering about a cup of hemlock. Even Nick had had enough of the tedious recitation.

  One day, after Amigo’s first, “Why?” Nick interjected, “Why not?”

  There was silence for a few seconds. Then quietly, from beneath the bed: “I don’t know.”

  It was over, just like that.

  Nick always followed Dr. Varner’s rule prohibiting shoulder carrying. But an active boy found hand-carrying his pal cumbersome. They came up with a solution that worked for both of them. Amigo clamped his beak to the bottom of Nick’s shirt. This let him stay connected regardless of what Nick was doing. If his boy ran, Amigo hung tough, his little body swinging back and forth.

  It wasn’t long before all Nick’s shirts were shot with multiple holes. Some were so ratty that I told him they could no longer be worn to school. “But Mom,” Nick countered, “everyone wears their shirts like this now.” And they did. A bit of checking around revealed that Nick and Amigo had started a middle school fad. The other students were imitating Nick’s punky, parrot-distressed look by using sharpened pencils or scissors to trash their shirts. Luckily none of the other moms figured out who was responsible for starting this fashion-forward deconstruction.