The Parakeet Who Thought He was a Sparrow and Other Riveting Stories about Parakeets

I am impressed that you, my dear reader, were drawn in by a headline about parakeets and sparrows!

(picture taken from Burden's Birds)

Last year Eric and I discovered a strange situation at our apartment complex. The sparrows had used their collective goodwill to take a proactive stance on the subject of adoption. Having discovered a lonely parakeet in the Denver area they invited their colorful cousin to join their mob. We watched this parakeet forage and flock with all of the little brown and black sparrows. He swooped and swarmed with them all winter. They cuddled together against the cold and seemed to be oblivious to their very obvious differences.

When spring came the entire flock disappeared for a while. When they returned the parakeet was nowhere to be found. I don't know if he found his own kind and decided to flock with the other parakeets somewhere in Central America. Maybe he had joined the sparrows as a means to impress a lady and when their relationship went South (yes I did make a bad pun), so did he.

Someone once said that the most memorable moments are those that break from the routine. Meaning that we need both routine and some break from routine to have a life worth remembering. The parakeet was an odd sort of reminder to this fact. We get so used to living life and looking at things in certain ways that it comes as quite a shock when the routine is changed. First we were surprised to see the parakeet and then surprised to no longer see it.

Anyway I have another parakeet story that I would like to share now as people generally don't have reason to share parakeet stories.

Growing up my family had two parakeets, well two at a time, three in total. (Disclaimer*I don't recommend getting a bird as a pet. It is weird to keep something that is meant to fly in a tiny cage*) Anyway the parakeets do as all birds seem to, they chirped and chattered incessantly. The birds were in a corner of the dining room so it seemed as though they were involved in every activity. We were always talking over the loud birds.

When my family decided to move to New Mexico it was agreed that the birds should be re- homed as it would be cruel to take them so far in a car. Reflecting back on the move to New Mexico my parents sold a car and drove the entire family: two adults, a teenager, a nine year old, a baby in a car seat, a beagle, two cats and a couple of weeks worth of necessities into a Ford Taurus. Those parakeets were truly blessed to avoid that car trip from Montana to New Mexico.

Anyway, back to the parakeets. When my parents gave the parakeets to their new home we all agreed to see if my nine year old brother would notice. He has never been considered the most perceptive person in the world, but we all thought it would take no more than a couple of hours for him to realize that the obnoxiously loud parakeets were gone. Two weeks went by before he noticed that the endless bird chatter had subsided. Two weeks! The moral of the story is that parakeets are not good pets and nine year old boys cannot be counted on to notice dramatic change.