Parrot Fever

Our Maximillian Pionus parrot used to be called Max but now she is Maya. That's because we didn't know her sex when we got her two years ago. I think we always knew she was female, though, because she loves Paul the most. I do most of her feeding and day to day maintenance, and she likes me, I know. But Paul is her favorite. If he sleeps later than I do on the weekend, at his first movement upstairs Maya is the first to greet him with a loud "huh he huh he" which is her way of saying "Hi Paul." If the cat is scratching at the door she'll notify us. When she is playing on top of her cage she loves to feed the dogs by throwing her food on the floor. Most of all she loves a shower. On the weekend I will fill a spray bottle with warm water and shower her until she is soaked. She crawls up and down getting every inch wet, spreading her wings and showing as much enthusiasm as a child running through a sprinkler. When the weather is warm she likes to come outside with us and hang out on the deck in her outside cage while we work in the yard. She sometimes imitates the calls of birds she hears. Today we went to Tacoma to see the movie "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill." We had read the book and loved it, and weren't disappointed by the movie. Since Maya is a captive-born bird who was hand fed it didn't make me sad that she is caged like I thought it would. But someday I would love to have a huge outdoor aviary so she can fly and have some bird friends, too. Mark Bittner, the "bird man" of Telegraph Hill spoke in the movie about his sense of loss when one of the parrots died, and how he thought she communicated both gratitude and disappointment to him during her last evening. He then came to the conclusion that he did love the parrots, and spoke a little about how it is truly possible to love an animal. I know what he means. While both Paul and I love our children and their spouses and our grandchildren like crazy, our core family right now is the two of us, our wonderful black dogs Lucy and Angus, our cat Rickie, and of course, Maya.