Pickles The Parrot: A Humorous Look At Life With An African Grey (5 page)

An hour goes by, then another. No more
action. Doesn't matter. The scenery is spectacular and wildlife
abounds. Ducks with adorable little ducklings learning to dive and
popping back up out of the water like little rubber balls. Bossy
geese and their goslings. A muskrat momentarily entangled in your
floating line. No bear, deer or moose but then you already saw a
bear and her cub and a white tailed deer on the drive in. Only one
fish landed but it wasn't even the highlight. It was just one great
part of this most memorable day.

On the way in, dragging that same leech
again, a nice little 14 incher is brought to the boat—perfect for
the fry pan! Back to camp and a fresh air nap. Salivating as the
fresh trout sizzles in the fire, wafting it's delicate scent your
way now and then. Paprika, garlic, onion-fried potatoes to
accompany the fish and an ice-cold beer.

The sky erupts into brilliant colors of blood
reds and fiery oranges as the sun retires for the evening. Red sky
at night, fishermen's delight—a delightful sign of the next day to
come. The owl in the tree overhead hoots softly as you drift off in
your lawn chair thinking—life just doesn't get any better than
this.

Sorry, I get a little carried away when I
start thinking of nature.

There are 2 people I have to credit for my
love of birds. First—my mom. As a kid, I was always interested in
birds, along with any sort of animal and creature. When I was
young, she taught me to respect animals and wildlife and my parents
always allowed us to have pets. My entire life, I kept animals of
some sort but at some point I kind of lost touch with nature and
the wild and I blame my Grandmother for that. She was a teacher—a
very serious and strict one. She lived in Saskatchewan so mom would
have all us kids write to her but she always sent my letter back,
corrected. She would underline all my spelling and grammar mistakes
and put a grade at the top of the page—anything from a ‘D’ to and
‘A’. An ‘A’ grade was accompanied by a star sticker. I found out in
later years that she did the same to my mom, even as an adult. As a
young teenager, I stopped writing to her because it made me so
angry.

When she came to visit, or if we went to
visit her, a lot of our time was spent taking walks. Walks were
fine by me but she would insist on stopping to look at every plant,
tree, animal or bird and then lecture us with information about it.
When we returned home, I was basically given a test on what we had
learned that day. She would have collected specimens such as
leaves, flowers or branches then produce the items and have us
identify them. Soon, I refused to go with walks with her. It was
just too much like homework and I got enough of that at school,
which I hated.

One year, we went to visit for a couple of
weeks at Christmas time and I thought that was wonderful because I
was excused from my school for a whole week. Once there, I was
informed that I would be attending her class and I thought it might
be cool, something different and I’d be the teacher’s pet since she
was my Grandma. Not to be. I was picked on mercilessly. I was asked
to answer every question directed to the class, even if others had
their hands up. I was chided for not answering correctly and was
even shamed by being ordered to stand in a corner. My excuse that I
hadn’t learned these things in my class at school wasn’t even
considered.

Many years later, Neil and I took my mom to
camp in an RV next to a lake for a couple of weeks. Mom brought her
bird identification book and insisted on including me in her page
flipping identifications any time a bird was spotted. I was there
to relax and just enjoy my surroundings and suddenly, there I was,
doing homework again. I tried to humor her but I was seething
inside.

The next time Neil and I went camping, alone,
we started noticing birds and wondering what they were. Suddenly I
was wishing I had paid attention with mom and started to feel bad
about my behavior. I also started regretting that I hadn’t listened
to my Grandma because now I wanted to know everything about
anything to do with nature. Mom hadn’t forced the bird thing on me;
she had just wanted someone to enjoy it with. That one trip with
her though, brought nature crashing back to me.

A few years later, it was Pickles who had
credit due. How can you live with a bird and not start appreciating
any other kind of bird? You see that they have character and
personality and you start to wonder how that applies to wild birds.
You start looking at all birds in a different light and
appreciating both their similarities and their differences. They
stop being just these little creatures flying about.

Pickles is happy watching nature and our yard
is almost as good as the wild. He likes spending time with us
outside and there’s always something to observe. The first couple
of years, we put him in a cage outside but after awhile it cramped
his style so an aviary was built. We have a yard that is just
slightly larger than average and we’ve planted over 150 trees and
shrubs for wild bird habitat. Over the years, Pickles had developed
an incredible repertoire of birdcalls but his favorite bird, and
his favorite bird sound is the crow. He gets very excited when
they’re around and caws insistently at them. The crows basically
ignore him but the chickadees like to visit him now and then.

Pickles’ sole purpose in life is to abuse
people and embarrass me. Pickles outside, is a disaster waiting to
happen. One day, Pickles and I are hanging out in the aviary on a
warm spring day. Pickles perches above, preening and content in the
warm morning sunshine. Our yard is lovely in its semi-wild state
and flocks of Evening Grosbeaks are frolicking. Trees and shrubs
dot the long, semi-circle perimeter of the yard. People walking by
briefly appear and disappear between the foliage due to the gaps of
a mere foot or two between the outer border of trees.

An old man strolls by, lost in thought,
appearing here and there between the perimeter trees. As he appears
between the first gap in the shrubbery, Pickles spots him and
greets him with "Hellooooooo". The man’s startled face glances up
just as it’s disappearing behind the next bush. “Hello” says the
bush. A moment later the man appears on the other side.

The old man stops, smiling and ready to
engage in neighborly conversation but there’s nobody to be seen in
the yard. Looking a little embarrassed, he turns to continue his
walk. Now, all this happens in an instant so before I can respond,
and as he is disappearing behind the next bush, Pickles inquires
“Aren’t cha hungry?”

“What?” asks the bush. When the man comes out
from behind, he doesn’t stop this time. He only slows down while
his eyes dart around, desperately looking for the source of the
voice. Again, just as he’s walking behind the next bush, Pickles
calls out “Doncha want sum breakfast?”

This time, as the man comes out from behind a
bush, I wave and say “Over here!” But he’s picked up his pace.
Although he’s looking in the yard, he doesn’t have time to spot me
before the next bush, or the one after…or after that…because now
he’s practically running. I’m only catching quick glimpses of a
scared little old man. He’s gone. High tailed it right on out of
there with Pickles screaming after him…“Want some pom pom
breakfast?” (pomegranate) “Eat your breakfast!”

I was standing in the middle of the yard by
then and before I can recover from my dismay and embarrassment, a
car goes by. Inside are two young men, cruising slowly, arms out
the windows, moving to the music. Pickles lets out a loud wolf
whistle. I’m praying they don’t hear it over the loud music, but I
never seem to have that kind of luck where Pickles is concerned.
And sure enough, I hear the car stop and back up. They find a gap
in the trees, where they can see me. I’m horrified.

“Sorry. That was my parrot”, I explain as I
point toward the aviary. “Oh” the driver says, “Cool.” But I don’t
think they believed me, and you could see the disappointment in
their faces that I wasn’t some hot young chick. Then, just as they
start to drive away, Pickles hollers “Score!” Oh man…I’m dying
here. However, I was thankful that they were out of earshot when
Pickles did his loud Bull Frog. It sounds more like flatulence.
Thank God for small favors.

“My God Pickles!” I exclaim, “You are SO
embarrassing, I could wring your little neck!”

“Take your pills.” He said.

The neighbors get a real kick out of him
though and Jeff, from across the street, likes to whistle back and
forth with him. Pickles likes it when Jeff copies everything he
does and Pickles tries to trip him up. Sometimes it works and we
hear Jeff say “Well, you got me there. I can’t do that.” Jeff’s a
good whistler so Pickles also likes to try and copy him. That’s
good because I don’t whistle all that well, Neil can’t whistle at
all so Pickles has to rely on TV and making up his own tunes, which
he is very good at.

Our neighbor Dave, right next door, sometimes
gets the brunt of Pickles cruelness. Dave was painting his back
porch one day and Pickles’ play stand is next to the window,
overlooking Dave’s back yard, so Pickles made the sound of a phone
ringing through the open (but screened) window. Dave dropped
everything and ran in the house to answer his phone. A minute
later, he returned and Pickles rang the phone again. Dave obliged
Pickles by running back in the house. Several rings later, Dave
finally noticed Pickles and realized he’d been duped.

Pickles doesn’t fool us too often anymore
because we realized he needs to answer his own phone. He has the
spacing between rings perfect but after 2 or 3 rings, he can’t help
but go “Beep. Hello?” So, we wait. He also physically pretends to
pick up the receiver. He raises his little talon up to his ear as
he says “Hello?” and has his own little conversation. “Uhuh. Okay.
Uhuh. Okay then, bye-bye.” Then he lowers his talon, effectively
hanging up the receiver.

Dave had a collie over for a play date with
his golden retriever and Pickles got a kick out of watching them
play. As the dogs were play fighting, Pickles would bark and all
play would stop while the dogs looked around for the intruder.
Unable to find the culprit, they continued with their play. Pickles
continued this game until I thought the poor dogs would go mad.

We spend a lot of time in our yard and wanted
to add a water feature to attract more birds so we decided to build
a pond. Our trout permit finally arrived from the Ministry of
Environment so we bought fish and released them into their new
home. We took Pickles out to the aviary for his supper and settled
next to the pond in lawn chairs to observe our trout.

Everything was going just fine—Pickles went
on and on about his supper. “Supper in the aviary. Mmmmmmm. What a
good supper. Mmmmmmm.”

Two young girls, about 16 years old, walked
down the side of the road about 25 feet from Pickles. Naturally,
Pickles feels required to act neighborly. His hellos draw no
response and he takes rejection personal so he resorts to loud
whistling. The girls glance around but keeping walking. As I
mentioned earlier, the aviary is sort of hidden and it’s difficult
to see an African Gray in an 8X8 structure of branches through our
yard foliage.

Whistling obviously wasn’t good enough so he
hollers out “Gimme kiss!” which makes the girls giggle
uncomfortably since all they could see was Neil and I sitting pond
side. They continued on their way and I thought nothing of it until
Neil said that they might have thought it was he talking to them
since Pickles speaks in Neil’s voice most times. I began to cringe
out of embarrassment but tried to put it out of my mind and watch
the fish.

A few minutes later, the girls came back. I
was just heading into the house but stopped, figuring I’d set this
right so I called out “Did you hear him say he wanted a kiss?”
pointing at the corner of the aviary where Pickles sat, quiet for
once.

One of the girls glanced over at me with a
mixed look of disgust, shock, and horror. I was appalled to be on
the receiving end of such a look.

“It was the parrot asking for a kiss!” I
called out again but the girls had their heads together, talking
and hurrying away. They didn’t hear me.

“Way to go” Neil said. “You told them it was
HIM and pointed in the general direction of both of us. They think
you were talking about
me
!”

I replayed it in my mind and yup, that’s
exactly the way it would have looked. Now they think I’m some weird
old lady that wants them to kiss some lecherous old man. Sometimes
I think about buying Pickles a muzzle.

We spend as much time as possible, sitting
around the pond. It’s about 20 feet long, 16 feet wide with
waterfall and rocky shoal gradually sloping to its 5-foot depth.
The waterfall, fed through the pump in the deepest end, helps
provide aeration and filtration.

You can’t help but fixate on the waterfall,
the water gracefully cascading down the rocks and navigating the
short creek until tapering elegantly into the shallows, where
little trout sit in anticipation of drifting food. The pleasing
tone of a babbling brook is utterly mesmerizing and
transcending.

Rocks of all sizes are handpicked for their
unique color or shape and placed along the perimeter of the pond.
Thyme, yarrow and wildflowers creep through the rocks and naturally
envelope the pond while the trees reflect their colorful foliage on
the glassy surface below. Unsuspecting insects land on the water
and fish rise for the offering. As the fish are dining, the
waterfall and shoal are alive with birds of all sizes taking their
evening bath. And all the while, the songbirds in the trees are in
perfect harmony with the silvery song of the brook. Now and then,
Pickles notices a fish take an insect off the surface and will
alert us with “Fishy eat a bug!”