The bird isn’t stupid and knows very well how windows work — something Isla still had to learn when this photo was taken (in 2009, not long after she came to live with us rule our lives)

Our neighbour has gone on a trip for a few days and so I’m stuck with caring for her bird. It’s not that I mind the actual caring part or the bird, it’s just that the bird is not a happy camper. He’s used to our neighbour constantly talking to him or muttering to herself, and so he gets quite bored and lonesome whenever she is gone, to the point of where he starts cleaning himself obsessively and ripping out his feathers. (I talk to him, of course, but the bird isn’t stupid and knows very well that I’m not his human.)

Also, the bird cannot fly. I’m not sure why as our neighbour and her daughter just found him on the street one day and, faced with letting him die for certain or taking him in, did the right thing. (Posters put up on trees and the like did not net any results.)  He likes to climb around in and out of his cage and he can jump to a climbing frame adjacent to his cage, but sometimes he misjudges his non-ability to fly and ends up on the kitchen floor. From where he can’t get back up to his cage, his food, his water etc.

Our neighbour just holds out her finger and he jumps onto it, so she can lift him back up, but the bird isn’t stupid and knows very well that my finger is not the finger he likes and trusts. So all I can do is to put his climbing frame on the floor and wait for him to climb on that and then lift the whole shebang, bird and all.

Our neighbour will be back tomorrow. The bird and I can’t wait.