After the deaths of Ike and Karen, Lucille had fewer birds than I had. It was the first time ever, except for when my first birds had their babies. It just seemed wrong.
So I took Del and Sue to Lucille's. Del has been caged his whole life. He's the young fellow who was mated with Dot, an older bird with bad wings. After she died, a tan female named Sue became his new mate. She was a go-getter at Lucille's and adapted to caged life at my house easily. Would Del adapt to flying free as easily?
Oh, yeah!
Sue remembered the birdroom and flew around her old digs right away. It took him a little while to even venture out of the cage. I think Lucille had to encourage him out, because my big homemade half-inch hardware cloth cage he was in has sharp edges. She wanted that cage out of the birdroom before her birds landed on them and cut their feet.
Del explored a bit that first day until he found another cage he felt he could park himself in. Lucille has way more cages than necessary to her way of thinking, but the birds have their own ideas of who can have what cage from one day to the next. He got chased away from any cage currently occupied.
About a week later he showed me how well he could fly, zooming around the birdroom in a big loop while I was there. Was he saying, "No need to take me back, I'm doing great here."?
But we had another problem.
Little Girl was cussing a blue streak from morning to night and getting everyone upset and flighty. We don't know why, unless she took one look at tan Sue and thought she was the tan hussy who stole her former mate away from her. Or that Sue would steal her current mate away from her. Lucille endured three long days of the cussing and fussing, hoping she'd quit.
No way. So I brought Little Girl and her mate Sandy home. He's the pied boy who has a spot on his chest that you dare not mention or he yanks it out. Sandy had flown free his whole life. Would he like living in a big cage at my house? He was an expert at sneaking out past Lucille's hands when she wanted him to stay in a cage, so I prepared for the worst.
He seemed to get the idea within hours that at my house, nobody flies free. He seemed fine with that, never offered to sneak out past my hands during cage cleaning. Phew! He does aerobics a lot. He flies from one end to the other with a little hover and plop on the right-hand perch. Sometimes he lands on a swing midway.
How about the cussing finch? Did she keep on cussing? Not a word. She's happy and quiet. Maybe too quiet. Their cage is in the "dead corner" where other birds have gone too quiet. She spends almost all day in a little round nesting house in the corner, seems happy there, but she was out and about at Lucille's more than this.
Tonight when I clean cages, I'll swap cages around and put Little Girl and Sandy on the table where Randy and Lynn are. Lately Lynn's been pecking at Randy and chasing him during cage cleaning, so she could stand to go a little quiet for awhile. Randy's got energy to burn, like Sandy. He plays with his swing all day, clinging to the front wall and yanking on it, swinging on it, fraying his tail in the hardware cloth. Wonderful times, according to him.
