My cockatiel “Baby” and I were sitting on our deck having tea yesterday morning around 8:30am. I in my lounge chair, Baby on the railing snacking sunflower seeds with the visiting Chickadees and Nuthatches. I was enjoying nature’s twitters and squeaks of the morning until Baby let out a desparate scream. I looked up in time to see a Red-tailed Hawk snatch her and carry her into the trees. I leapt up out of my chair like it’s suddenly electrtified and ran screeching into the house. I’m not sure where I thought I was going or doing, all I knew was I couldn’t watch or listen to Baby being eaten alive. I couldn’t stop screaming and running around in circles. Hannah by then was screaming too, as I managed to convey what had happened with shrieks and gestures. We ran back outside and in between my screams I heard a very distant peeping deep in the woods. All the other wildlife had vacated (most likely due to my screaming) and the woods were dead silent, so I knew it was her. And I could tell that she was not being eaten alive as the tone was more like a beacon or a distress signal. Rythmic and regular. Shoeless and afraid of what state we would find her in, we take off in the general direction of the distress calls through prickers and overgrown brush, and a football field later find her sitting on the ground. She is visibly intact and we spend the rest of the day snuggling and sleeping. She made half hearted atempts at eating and drinking, twice she bobbed her head along to a car commercial jingle on TV with me, but I’m sure it was just to please me. I’m happy to report that today she is eating and drinking and singing, seemingly back to her old self, save one broken toe and a small puncture wound on the bridge of her nose. How a hand raised, six inch high, flightless prima donna escaped a wild bird of prey is a story only Baby can tell. And she’s not talking.
Jennifer Koeller
