Hawk.

The other day, while I was working in my office, a Harris hawk tried to fly through the window to eat my birds.

The resulting birdsplosion scattered cockatiels across the room. Everyone took off in panicked flight, except Tiny Green Bird.

She's not easily intimidated.

Gaslighting.

My lineolated parakeet talks.

But only when I can hear him.

Sometimes he talks for other people now, but for a while there he did a good job of convincing people that I was crazy.

The 'O' Key

Tiny Green Parrot is a Pacific Parrotlet. She likes to help me text.

She also enjoys hanging out on my keyboard when I am working. Sometimes she likes to guard the 'o' key.

Pelicans.

I occasionally do transports for the local seabird rescue. This usually involves driving down the coast and picking up the birds from animal shelters, coast guards, and other agencies. Most of the time somebody else has already picked up the birds and driven them part of the way. When I've got several birds to transport at once I like to say I have a car full of pelicans, because it conjures up this sort of image:

The truth is that the birds are always transported in cardboard boxes; the dark makes them feel safe and secure, and they can't accidentally poke out anybody's eyes. So far I've transported pelicans, cormorants, and a grebe. Even in boxes, seabirds make my car smell like fish.

Compelling reasons not to acquire a bird.

We currently own 15 birds. Most of them were given to us by people who could no longer keep them for one reason or another. Parrots are all horrible demonspawn hellbeasts, but even finches have their serious downsides. Here are some good reasons to not own a bird.

1. They live forever.

Most people know that big parrots are a 50+ year commitment, but even cockatiels can make it well into their 20's. Budgies (parakeets) are a 10+ year commitment, and a finch can be around for 8 or 9 years. Changing families can be very hard on social birds, so people considering a parakeet, lovebird, cockatiel, conure, or parrotlet should seriously consider their plans for the next couple of decades.

2. Birds are evil.

Parrots are jealous little beasts and have a tendency to fall madly in love with one person and hate all potential rivals for affection/attention. Even cute, cuddly baby parrots will eventually hit puberty and develop a passionate hatred for your spouse, your children, your parents, your other pets, your friends, or anyone else who visits your home. Not every bird does turn into a feathered machine of pain and anger, but any parrot can suddenly decide to terrorize the people you love. Alternately, your bird may fall madly in love with your spouse/child/other family member and suddenly decide they hate you.

3. Birds are messy.

Smaller birds tend to be the worst mess-makers, but even big birds love to fling food and stuff everywhere. It's a major form of bird entertainment. Even through careful engineering I've only ever managed to direct the mess rather than contain it. Daily vacuuming is pretty much unavoidable, if birdseed falls in damp places it tends to put down roots and sprout, and you will still be finding petrified crud years after you cease to own birds.

4. Birds will tear up your stuff.

In the wild parrots spend pretty much all day shredding things in search of food and nesting materials. In captivity this desire for massive destruction cannot go unquenched. Even provided with an infinite quantity of shreddable-toys intended for shredding, parrots will occasionally decide to sample your library, data cables, or something else that you love. This is usually accompanied by innocent and adorable behavior intended to throw you off your guard.

Do not be fooled. Birds are monsters. Birds are descended from carnivorous dinosaurs, and they have not forgotten this. Birds will destroy your home, your marriage, your family, and all of your possessions. Do not let them into your house. Say no to birds.

Tea time.

I don't normally drink coffee, but I do like to drink tea.

So do various other members of the family.

How Newtzilla Save My Sanity

This is the fourth place we've lived in 3.5 years of marriage. We appear to be doomed to live next door to screaming people. The first ones were a domestically violent teenage boy and his mother.

The second was a lady with at least five kids in a 700 square foot house, who basically shrieked profanity at the lot of them constantly. She had a boyfriend who appeared to be 17, and possibly sold drugs given the number of people who would walk up to her door at 3am, speak with her briefly, and then leave. At our third house we lived next to a group home for disabled teenagers. Now we live next to a family with preschooler and a toddler, who basically scream nonstop all day, every day.

They scream when they run around outside. They scream when they fight with each other. They scream when they have to do something they don't want to do. They scream when they are excited. They appear to play games that consist entirely of taking turns shrieking like they are being murdered. Our neighborhood is pretty packed, and my home office window opens approximately 15' from their house. We don't have air conditioning in most of the house, and so basically I had no way to escape from the sound. Mind you, I did daycare for years and the sound of kids playing doesn't really phase me unless it's continuous high-pitched shrieking. One day, after six hours of continuous high-pitched shrieking, I snapped.

I was going to call Child Services on them. I was going to file a noise complaint. I was going to start screaming profanity every time they started screaming. I was utterly filled with impotent rage at the parents for viewing the screaming as "kids being kids." Just going over and talking to them was not really an option, we don't speak the same language. It would also leave me vulnerable to retribution if I ever take legal action, and I don't want to risk starting a feud with neighbors who think screaming=playing and would take offense to "Please ask your children to stop playing, their playing bothers me." Fortunately for the neighbors, they took a week-long vacation right after the Scream-a-Thon. By the time they returned, I had acquired Newtzilla.

I got Newtzilla on Craigslist. The kid who gave her to me said she was probably a Chinese firebelly newt. I was expecting to receive an animal the size of my pinky.

Newtzilla is a 9" paddletail newt, in a genus that typically tops out at 7" or so. I am utterly in awe of this animal. Unfortunately it's a bit hard to find people who appreciate her.

Half the time I get "What's a newt?" in response. Even though she is under-appreciated, Her Newtliness has proved to be a major asset to our household. She likes to have running water with a decent current, and her tank needs to stay nice and cold so I keep a fan blowing on it at all times. This provides a enough white noise to cover most of the shrieking, so I am no longer poised on the brink of madness.

Descent into madness.

When I was a kid, my mother owned approximately a dozen cockatiels, lovebirds, and parakeets. One of our regular household "kid chores" was to clean all the cages and feed and water all the birds, which took forever. She kept them in the tv room where we used to watch cartoons. Looking back now, I realize that the birds all lived in cages that were much too small and had no toys or anything to entertain themselves with. They desperately tried to stave off boredom and madness by making a lot of noise. As a kid, all I knew was that they were loud as hell. They were messy and horrible, and I hated taking care of them.

People who own birds tend to become bird-magnets. Other people foist birds off on bird-owners because hey, what's a few more? This is how my mother came to own Petey. Petey was either a gray-cheeked parakeet or a bat out of hell, or possibly both. In hindsight he was a miserable animal, but as an eight year old, all I knew was that he loved to escape from his cage, fly across the room to land on my shoulder, and then bite my face severely. Any attempt to remove him from my body resulted in my hands getting chomped as well. Unsurprisingly, I developed a fear of parrots.

Eventually most of the birds died or were given away, and I grew up and moved out and got married declared that I would never own birds. Ever. I hated birds. Birds were bad. Then I went back to visit my parents and heard one sad little chirp. Ernie, the cockatiel my mother bought when I was three, was still sitting sadly in his little cage in the corner of the kitchen. I had since learned all about bird care and have an uncontrollable urge to take care of animals in need. Ernie was 22 years old.

You know how bird people attract birds?

A lot of birds get dumped at the local bird shop near our old house.

And that is how I ended up with a house full of decrepit, defective, and ugly birds. They're still pretty messy, but they're not too loud when they have lots of toys and fresh foods to occupy them. The parrots have their own room where they can be as loud as they like, and huge cages for the times they can't be out playing. At 25 years old Ernie has a girlfriend, and he spends all his time preening and arguing with her. It's a good retirement for the old guy, fueled largely by my guilt over the way he spent his first couple of decades. Every so often though, I sort of wonder what happened to me.