I’ve never lived with parakeets before, so fostering two parakeets this summer has a new experience. I’ve found them to be quite low maintenance, and rather soothing – most of the time.
One of my favorite Monty Python skits features two “ladies” discussing how best to “put one’s budgie down” when it gets to be annoying. One might choose to hit it with a book, or shoot it above the beak, but at all costs, one should not flush them down the toilet, since they “breed in the sewers”. Not too longer ago I almost put one of the budgies down by accident – I didn’t close the cage door by the seed tray, and was surprised to suddenly have a parakeet careening through the house. I finally caught him/her behind the toaster oven, and had to carefully balance the need to hold on to the tiny squirmy body without squeezing too hard and accidentally reenacting the budgie skit. I quickly found out that that tiny little beak can exert quick a mean bit of force on the unsuspecting finger.
Once back in the cage, he or she immediately went back to normal, which for parakeets consists of an almost constant chittering and chattering, punctuated with occasional mad squawking and fluttering around for no discernable reason. As a human I have no way of knowing if they are happy or not; I can’t imagine being happy in a cage, but they do seem to enjoy each other quite a bit. They are constantly in conversation and mirror each other’s movements as well as vocalizations. They have their own personalities – the green one expects the gray one to provide grooming and will poke him if it’s not forthcoming. I’ve been told they like music and singing, so I do try to sing to them; they are quite patient and tolerant of my lack of talent, but suspect they breathe little birdie sighs of relief when I stop.
They have not been trained to talk and are quite skittish; they would never consider perching on a finger. They make an exception, though, for their favorite treat; they tolerate and even investigate my hand when it brings them a millet spray, willing to risk it all for that birdie junk food.
