IRONY - aka Rae

 

A year ago, I bought Zupe a parakeet, Po, named for the pilot in the final trilogy of Star War films.  I searched and found! someone hand-raising babies and we drove across the state to the farrrr North-East corner to pick him up.  Would have been helpful if the breeder had shared that he was very, very shy.  Zupe - not shy.  Not a good combination.  So, Po has not bonded with Zupe (or me) and I have gotten a bit over his unrelenting expression of affection for his mirrors. It has moved from PG to pretty hard R around here. My solution - he needed a buddy.

My thought was to get a second male bird.  I did not want babies - mostly because I was horrified at having an egg-bound female.  (I do not know that this is a common problem in the species- it is just one of my medical nightmares.  See also IMHA, blocked tomcats, HBC.)  But- since I was getting a near baby, I worried, "What if Po became aggressive to him?"  (Finn, by the way.  But, of course, you knew that.)  So, when Paul the Parakeet-dude gently pushed me to consider more than one, I thought, OK.  Two young males.  Probably safer to spread Po's potential territoriality between two newbies.  The name for the third boy.  Ray.  (Obviously).  Yes, I know.  In Star Wars Ray is Rae is a woman. (What was that ominous music...?)

FLASHBACK: Once upon a time, I was a lowly graduate student who needed hand-reared male doves for my dissertation research.  You, or at least I, cannot sex squab on day three.  So, in a salute to French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck who postulated that one might inherit traits acquired from his parents, I gave ALL my babies male names.  (Ken, Dave... but also Big Bird (I let my undergraduate assistant name that one) and Modern Physics.  (As a baby Modern Physics had the same enormous and expressive eyebrows that my professor for that class had...who WAS male.))  It didn't work.  I raised 18 squab of which 5 were male. 

Back to Ray....

I met Parakeet Paul in the parking lot of a Walgreens - on the side facing Dunkin' Doughnuts.  He hands me a white box.  I pass him $20.   As he turns around to leave he informs me that this is a male and a female.

What do you do?  He had asked me earlier in our relationship if I wanted a pair, even a breeding pair and I was clear.  No.  Thank you. No.

So- great.  I'm sure a ménage à trois is the peaceful solution to all my birdy concerns.  Stay tuned.

Photo:  Finn and Rae (left to right)