This is Rescuing
By: Deidre Delpino Dykes
Tags: Pets And Animals, Parrot Lifestyle, Animal Rescue, Parrot, Birds

This is Rescuing

It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.

I rescue parrots. It’s not my job, but it’s my passion. Working with an mid-Atlantic organization called Phoenix Landing, I act as a foster or adoptive pet caretaker for birds who need a second (or third or fourth or fifth) home.

It’s hard work. The animals come to you with pieces of themselves missing or broken; it’s up to you to make them whole again with love and patience. Not every story gets a happy fairy tale ending; sometimes homing placements don’t work out and the bird is surrendered and we try all over again.

As for me? I have five rescued adopted parrots, which is probably four too many (depending on who you ask), but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Mai Tai, a pineapple green cheek conure. March 2018 vs January 2020. Photo by author.

This is Mai Tai. He’s roughly six years old, though we don’t know for sure. He came from a squatting/hoarding situation in which five or six birds were kept in one small cage meant for one bird; he has a scar on his beak from being bitten when young and is missing part of one toe. I picked him up from another foster family who couldn’t keep him; he’d been ripping out his own feathers and they thought he wasn’t happy. Above is how he looked when I got him versus now.

It took patience. It was well over a year between when I got him and when he first let me touch him — and only on his terms. It took two years for him to agree to step onto my hand. It took dietary changes and environmental changes, new toys, new supplements, great vet care, and time to turn him around. Now he’s thriving.

Winter, Terra, and Magick, 2 year old Fischer’s lovebirds. Photo by author.

Here are the lovebirds (front to back) Winter, Terra, and Magick. They showed up at an ASPCA, which is not equipped to handle parrots, on Christmas Eve two years ago. There were a dozen very young baby lovebirds turned in that day, surely the result of accidental breeding, and the babies were split up and rehomed.

I ended up with these three, who I never took in with the expectation of being human-loving birds. And they probably never will do more than tolerate me; they’re not tame and are spooked by my hands. They watch me touch and interact with other parrots all day, but don’t seem to want to give me much of a chance.

That’s okay. I didn’t do it because I needed something out of this relationship; I did it to make sure they had a good forever home, whatever that ends up meaning.

Archie, a normal green cheek conure, about 1.5 years old. Photo by author.

Archie here was surrendered for aggression. Is he still a bitey young man? Sometimes. He certainly can be. He’s got issues with cage territoriality and when he gets too wound up, he’ll bite my hands or face. So it’s my job to provide him with a calm yet enriching environment, good food, affection, and patience.

Will he ever stop biting? Who knows. Will it cause me to give him up if he continues to nip at me? Not likely. I can take it. And he’s worth it.

This is rescue. It’s time and patience and love and band aids and scrubbing cages and vacuuming floors. It’s not all cuddles and instagrammable moments. There’s blood and sweat and tears. There’s aggravation. There’s pain. But there’s joy in it as well.

A warning: Never ask a rescuer to choose between you and their animals; they will choose the animals every time.