Budgerigars Joey and Polly: RIP

Dave A writes:

Some time ago at our main watch assembly plant in China, a budgie flew in through the window. The factory owner (being a fan) shot off in the car to buy the fellow a cage. While he was away one of his girls opened the 'budgie box' for a look and the relieved bird headed for the hills through the nearest open window.

When Peter returned, holding the budgie equivalent of the priciest suite at the Sheraton in his hand, he had to shoot back to the shop, hotfoot, to buy a resident for the aforementioned palatial avian residence, just to save face.

The bird he purchased was not well liked by his office staff and was dumped in a corridor on top of a locker after a few days. I walked past one day and nicked him as an office 'maketalk'. I liked them anyway having always had one in the UK.

This was Joey. He is clinging to my right chest in the pic. He was a feisty little bugger, defending his cage area and pecking to the bone anyone who was daft enough to insert a digit into his cage. Not a nice bird.

I guessed his aggression was down to being in solitary so I introduced him to Polly. A feisty little mover that I purchased from the same shop that Peter got Joey from. Unfortunately they were identical to the eye and I could only tell them apart by putting my finger to the bars of the cage. Joey was the one that attacked! All puffed up and indignant.

The two birds had totally opposite personalities. Polly would copy my whistles. Joey ignored me. Polly liked to be tickled through the bars, Joey liked to shred soft tissue.

The girls in the office, of which there are 10, were assigned the task of looking after my pets, under threat of dismissal (joke) and the birds were released daily for a fly around. Only being caged at night.

One night the girls could not persuade the birds back into the cage and so they left them out. Next day, the first in turned on the lights and aircon and BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!! and feathers came out of the blower!

Joey was sitting on the impeller inside the aircon when the motor kicked in. I was in HK and received an email from Winnie entitled 'Blood Bin'. Attached was a picture of Joey after he was extracted from the unit with one wing almost detatched.

Upset is not the word here. I told Win to leave him alone and call me in two hours. Two hours later and he was still alive!! Yippee!

A driver was summoned and in a small box Joey was off to the doc's on Li Dan's lap. Somewhere I have never been! The plucky little git survived this high speed tour around the internals of the aircon unit, although he had to be hand fed for a while.

This incident left him with a dodgy wing and the curved back that you can see in the pic. He also was not much of a flyer after this, but he became very friendly to all in the office.

I would open the cage door daily and Polly would be out, up and off. Acrobatic showing off flying displays for 10 minutes and then back to the cage top tweeting for Joey to join her. Joey did sometimes. Pecking the hell out of the same aircon that did his back in.

The cage was right in front of my desk and it was a short hop for Joey to my laptop. Hours the bird sat there, working furiously at dismantling the machine. Also depositing large quantities of gwauno on my computer screen. I have lost count of the amount of times that I have deleted a comma from the text only to realise that it was a Joey deposit.

The six foot two, sixteen stone Fedex man that came daily to our office was terrified of these two. He was almost on his knees when he made his daily collection. The birds loved his card reader and would make a bee line for it as soon as he entered the room. What a woosie! Apart from this man, every visitor loved them. As did all of our staff.

Winnie and I tasked the resident guard at the factory to look after our mates over CNY. Strict instructions about replenishing food and water trays. Even stricter instructions about open windows. We thought we had covered every angle.

Winnie was back at the coalface on Thursday. She came home tonight and after the normal greetings and a lovingly prepared dinner, I said,

"How are my animals?"
"Which ones?" We have fish and terrapins there too. . .
"The birds?"
"Sit here, please"

Polly and Joey were found dead on the floor of their cage over CNY when the temperature was around 5 degrees in Buji, according to the guards report.

It may sound daft. It may seem trivial. But I liked those birds. They gave much pleasure and took nothing.