It's too quiet

The house isn't the same these days... missing are the happy chirps, chattering and whistles of Pebbles, the little blue and white friend who graced our home and made us laugh for the past five and a half years.

Pebbles feasting on chick weed

The life expectancy of strictly seed-fed budgies is between four and six years -- though Pebbles ate enough chunks of my umbrella plant that I might have expected him to live longer and the girls often picked chick weed from the garden for his enjoyment, his main fare was seed, some of which we recently realized was actually rancid. We replaced it with good seed, but the damage had already been done. For a while we thought he would recuperate, but it wasn't to be. The last weeks of Pebbles' life were bitter sweet -- we were saddened by the fact that he wasn't able to make a comeback, but we were also able to enjoy cuddling him, something he never allowed when he was his usual perky self.

Budgies have been a part of my life for all but eleven years, so it's always strange when a little feathered friend dies, leaving a bigger gap than a person would expect. We won't be getting another budgie while we have a dog -- I always felt a bit sad for Pebbles because he couldn't fly as freely once Shadow joined the family, but the girls would often take him to their rooms and let him socialize there.

Pebbles gave us plenty of laughs, and his life is better documented than any of our other birds, as he arrived after Simple Moodlings was well established. I posted several budgie updates with video in these Moodlings, and they're fun to watch and to remember what a little spaz our bird was. He loved Suzanna best, and every day when she came home, he'd listen for her voice and call out to her. I've gathered the budgie updates here for her to access whenever she feels like remembering, as one final Budgie Update:

#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7

It's not hard to imagine Pebbles somewhere in the great beyond now, singing in chorus with Fritzy, Max, Houdini, Sunny, and Buddy, other cheeky little birds from our past. Such a bright little spirit doesn't end here, of that I'm sure.

The dog and budgie show

Clik clik clik clik clik.

The other night I was doing the dishes, and heard the sound of Shadow-pup walking toward me across the living room hardwood. I turned around to talk to him -- and he wasn't there.

Puzzled, I asked, "Who's got the dog?" and Julia called out from her room, "He's here, sleeping on my bed."

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

That's when it dawned on me that Pebbles, the family budgie, has learned to imitate the sound of the dog's toenails on hardwood.

Now I'm waiting to hear the bird bark!

Budgie update #6

My girls were all worried yesterday -- "Mom, something is wrong with Pebbles!"

It was true. When I got up in the morning and uncovered his cage, the shouting began. Budgies have very loud voices when they're upset about something, and Pebbles was definitely using his. He was also bouncing around in his cage like a crazed thing, never settling for a second. Usually he has his quiet, dozy periods in the afternoon, but when I sat on the couch for my own quiet dozy period, I couldn't read my book for all the budgie yelling going on. There were no sweet chattering "birdie birdie birdies," "I love yous" or "kiss, kiss, kisses" to be heard all day.

Suzanna thought he was cold and feeling sick, so we upped the thermostat a notch, and that made us too warm. She thought he was hungry, so we refreshed his birdseed, but he wouldn't eat. He just bounced around the cage, yelling and shouting... so we let him out, and he attacked my umbrella plant, tried to find crumbs on the kitchen table, and just acted strange and skittish, uninterested in any interaction with his favourite human beings. He wouldn't even play his favourite chasing games (usually, us chasing him from place to place with a favourite toy). It seemed he was constantly asking for our attention, but at the same time, didn't want it. But he definitely wanted something. So we gave him his favourites -- celery leaves and bits of carrot. Not interested.

As we ate supper, he yelled and yelled and yelled, ran up and down his perches, turned somersaults between his legs, and just never stopped moving. Frantic.

And then it dawned on me. The night before, Julia had changed around the toys in the cage, replacing one usual shiny silver bell with a small jingle bell. I suggested she change it back.

Like magic, the yelling stopped. Pebbles is happy again. He just wanted his favourite bell back.

Here's a little video of him and his bell from this morning. He can see me making breakfast, so he's dancing around a little. At the end, he whispers a few "sweet nothings." If you ever come visit, he'll whisper some to you, too, as long as you let him keep his favourite bell.

Budgie update #5

After a busy day in the garden, I thought I'd take a break from Simple Suggestions and moodle about Pebbles, our resident clown and comedian. Just recently he tried something new -- rock climbing on our brick feature wall -- and he had us all laughing as he zipped up and down, headfirst both directions. Of course, he wouldn't do it once we had camera in hand, but he jabbered like the camera was a long lost friend. When Suzanna was editing footage from today, Pebbles flew against the computer screen in an effort to make friends with himself. What a wacky little bird! See for yourself.

Budgie update #4

Yesterday we had a lot of fun with Pebbles, who now says, "Kiss, kiss, kiss," we realized. He has a number of cat toys that he loves to chase around the floor, so Budgie soccer has become the game of choice. Here's a two minute video of his antics. I set the camera on the floor, and somehow we didn't see his "dribbling" of the pink ball until we were putting this video together. He's a crazy little bird!

Budgie update #3

It's official. Pebbles is a male, and he's Suzanna's bird. He's only learning to say the words she teaches him (hello, heyyy birdie, pretty bird, I love you), and if she's in the room, the rest of us don't exist. She's been trying to teach him to play fetch with his cat toys, but so far, he doesn't get it. He's a funny character who loves to pester and be pestered, and not a day goes by without someone telling him he's sooo cute.

With a little time and patience, maybe we could teach Pebs to play basketball or soccer... though soccer woudn't be fair because he can grab the ball with his toes and fling it. At the moment he's in Suzanna's room, keeping her company.

What's a pet for but to show us the way to love and laughter?

Budgie update #2

Today's moodling has nothing to do with Christmas or simplicity. It's being written because there's a budgie sitting on my shoulder (and because my sisters like budgie updates). This morning I realized that all but about fifteen years of my life have had a budgie in them. Budgies are the class clowns of bird school. We have funny stories about every one of the little birds who have graced our lives, and our latest tiny chum is no exception.

Pebbles is turning out to be quite the character. He chatters incessantly when there are people around, plays both with us and without us (on the floor, usually, so we have to watch that we don't step on him), and is learning new tricks. He flies in a kamikaze style and has bumped into the windows once or twice (part of the learning process), but for the most part is pretty adept at using his wings now that his flight feathers have grown in. We think he's figured out how to open his cage (that, or we keep forgetting to shut the cage door even when we haven't opened it!) We're still not 100% sure he's a he, but the colour of his cere hasn't changed. I suspect if he was a she we'd know by now.

In the past two weeks, Suzanna has managed to convince him to fly from his cage to land on her finger. He does it over and over again, seeming gratified whenever she says, "Good bird!" We think he says "I love you" and "pretty bird," but he hasn't yet got the knack of "hello, my friend," which I've been repeating since day one. He makes us laugh with his antics, as he chases his ball around, or nibbles someone's earring.

See for yourself -- here's a two minute video. He drops his ball, then waits for me to pick it up, just like a kid in a high chair. And can you hear what he says? Maybe you'll hear something I don't because of familiarity. If so, let me know...

Budgie update #1

Meet Pebbles (very close to actual size).

Pebbles has been with our family since August 5th. We picked her/him up at a large chain pet store after spending a couple of hours watching all the budgies in the pen. He beat out an albino that Julia named Marshmallow, and several other birds with striking plumage. Pebbles seemed to be the most sociable bird of the flock, running from one friend to the next, grooming and chatting them up. The sales assistant caught Pebbles in a net and unceremoniously dumped her/him into a box so that we could bring him/her home.

Young budgies are pretty much impossible for non-experts to sex, so as you've probably guessed, at the moment we don't know whether Pebbles is a he or a she. By the age of six months or so, the cere (the band above the beak where the nostrils are) turns brownish for a female or remains blue for a male. One of our earlier budgies, Sunny, turned out to be a female after we called her a him for the first six months of her life, and she was a victim of gender confusion for a long time after that. We have no idea what Pebbles is, though I'm guessing he's a he. Time will tell.

For the first few days at our house, Pebbles was pretty shell-shocked. Imagine, life with thirty friends like you in a two metre square pen suddenly turned into life in a small cage with five large monsters encouraging you to "Come out of the box, Pebbles. Come on Pebbles! You can do it!" He wouldn't come out, so someone finally tipped him out of the box. Then he sat on the floor of the cage for a day, and eventually moved up onto the apple tree branch we had carefully prepared (read: baked in an oven for an hour) for him.

He certainly didn't seem to be the same budgie we saw at the pet store. Huddled on his perch, barely moving, he flinched every time someone walked past. If a bird flew past the window or he saw a car drive by,  he would start budgie-yelling (scolding at the top of his lungs like sandpaper on cement) and flapping his wings, inevitably ending up on the floor of the cage. On the second day he was with us, someone opened the cage door, and he saw an opportunity for escape... but with clipped wings, he didn't get far. He ended up sitting on the rungs of one of our oak kitchen chairs, and the only way we could get him back to his cage was for me to gently close two hands around him and move him. My girls were very upset about that, saying I was destroying his ability to trust us, but what was the alternative?

He bit us fairly often for the first month. My girls absolutely loved our last budgie, Buddy, who was a very gentle, funny and playful character. They began to despair of ever being friends with this biting creature. Pebbles just couldn't compare to Buddy. To my girls' credit, though, they kept on trying to befriend Pebbles, sitting beside his cage with the door open, chattering to him, slowly winning him over and becoming his new "flock" of friends.

Pebbles is now trained to sit on anyone's finger or shoulder, and I swear he's talking. As I had my coffee this morning, I sat beside the cage and opened the door, and he jumped onto my finger saying, "How are you?" At least, that's what it sounds like. I also heard, "Pretty bird," and "I love you." I've been trying to teach him to say, "Hello, my friend," but he doesn't listen to me -- just chatters constantly in garbled budgie jargon. He listens to Suzanna, though, as the phrases I heard are the ones she's been repeating ad infinitum. Right now the two of them are playing with a jingle ball, and he's lovin' her up. Proof that with a little love and kindness, almost anyone can be won over.