RIP Tiki

Tiki the bright blue parakeet died overnight, and I am inexplicably sad! He was a lovely bird, and when I made kissing noises to him in the morning before I removed the cage cover, he would kiss back, flutter, chirp and ring the bell and spin the little toy that hung from the top of the cage. He was a pleasant little being, whom I always felt guilty about having in a cage, no more so than this morning when I found him.

As parakeets go, I've read and heard from bird breeders that 7 years is very old for a 'keet, and Tiki was well over 9 years old, so we were lucky to have his songs for so many years. But that doesn't make it any easier, and though people who don't know anything about pets can say, "well, it was only a bird," he was a lovely little pet, and we will miss him.

I noticed he was having trouble getting up and down from the perches in his cage the last couple of days, and over the last month or two he had begun plucking all his tail feathers. Last night when I covered him, he was sitting on the bottom of his cage, but he sometimes does that when he gets cold. This morning, he was in that same position, head down, no kissing noises... just a soft little ball of feathers.

I buried him in the woods behind our house so that he will be free where he was intended to be.
Fly, Tiki...