Escape Artist Lovebirds

One day, while my brother Joe was busy working on cutting the welded wire mesh for the aviary, he heard a bird chirping above his head. He didn't bother to look up thinking that it must be one of the house birds that are hanging out in our yard because we have plenty of them around the house. Then he heard another one and it sounded familiar but he still didn’t look up because he was bent on finishing what he was doing with the wire. Anyway, as soon as he finished cutting the wire, he looked up and saw two birds that looked exactly just like ours. He felt elated thinking that we might be able to catch these birds and we’ll add them to ones in the cage. Then a thought flashed in his mind that these could be our own birds who managed to get out of their cage. He looked at the cage and saw that it was empty! Those birds chirping on the guava tree are our own birds after all! How in the world did they manage to get out of their cage, that we do not know. We were so disappointed that we lost all of our three birds including the new comer. We could not eat and function well because we were always worrying and thinking about them. We all prayed that the birds will come back to us.

Do you believe in miracles?  Would you believe that after two days of being out in the wild that they did come back to us? All four of them too! Thanks to God for answering our prayers. What amazed us most is that they knew where their home is. They must have memorized their surroundings while they were living in the cage under the guava tree, I don’t know if they can do that. What matters most is that they came back home to us. They must have gone hungry during those two days that they were on the loose and they must have remembered that they can always find food in our place. So we put out some food inside their cage and one of them would go inside to eat, gingerly at first,  and then we would close the door behind it. Once the bird had its fill with the food, we would catch it and put it inside a smaller cage. Then we would do the same process all over again with the rest of the flock until we caught all four of them. Now they are all safe and sound and doing well.

This is the reason why we built a “safety area” in the aviary. This “safety area” serves as a holding pen for any bird that may accidentally escape from the main aviary and it also serves as our access area when servicing the birds. These birds are intelligent but at the same time, they are also known to be escape artists. So we have to make sure that we close the screen door behind us whenever we go inside this “safety area” to feed the birds. There is another screen door inside this “safety area” that leads to the main aviary. This door will only be opened once a week during a scheduled cleaning on the floor of the aviary. This will minimize our intrusion into the main aviary so as not to disturb the birds.  

On Losing a Lovebird

The white enamel shallow dish inside the cage is what the birds use to take a bath. We fill it up with 1 inch of water and they like splashing in it.

 It got to be so hot one day inside the rabbitry that we thought the birds might die because of the heat. So we brought them outside and put their cage under the guava tree which is right next to where we were building the outdoor aviary. They seemed to have picked their own partners at this time and where one goes, the other would follow. We noticed one day that the partner of the lutino bird was not looking well. It was looking lethargic and its eyes were sleepy most of the time. It just kept to itself in one corner and its feathers were somewhat ruffled. So we thought it would be best to separate this bird from the rest so we could monitor it better. We kept the bird in a separate cage all by itself and tried to tempt it to eat but it just kept hunch over in a corner of the cage. Meanwhile, it's lutino partner kept on crying because of the separation and we felt sorry for both of them. Then the sick bird passed away quietly after two days and we had to bury it. That was a very sad day for all of us.

I thought about buying a new bird to replace the one that died. The lutino bird kept on crying out loud as if it was searching for its partner and it was really heart breaking. Then three days later, a bird of the same kind, looking exactly like the one that we lost, came into our yard. We were very much surprised of course because it seemed like the bird that we buried was resurrected from the dead. We thought that this bird must have gotten out of its own cage and have been out in the wild for sometime. This new comer must have heard the cry of the Lutino bird who was still pining for its lost partner. Anyway, we were able to catch this loose bird when it went inside the chicken run. I know that we should have quarantined the bird first before mixing it with the others but in our excitement, we didn't do it. Once we put the new bird inside the cage, we could not tell which is which! Well anyway, the lutino bird stopped crying and it seems that it has found a new partner in this new comer. We've been blessed with a new bird and we're very happy for that.