Of a girl and her cockatiels

Pet life

Intelligent, responsive, attentive and agile — my pet cockatiels were my birds of joy.

The first cockatiel who came to us was not bought from a pet store. He decided to fly into our lives. He was definitely somebody’s pet who got away and flew into our bicycle store at Nagarbhavi Outer Ring road. We found him sitting on the side wheel of a kid’s bike.

Our mechanic had a knack for birds and he managed to swiftly catch him and put him under a metal basket. He just sat there blinking and probably wondering what was in store for him.

I wasn’t sure what to do with him but I went with my gut feeling. I quickly got him a standard-sized cage for cockatiels and brought him home. He was very aggressive and didn’t seem to like the sight of me. He hissed everytime I passed his cage. Winning his confidence seemed a challenge, as handling a bird was something I had no experience of.

I decided to keep him. He was now my bird and I didn’t have the heart to release him to fend for himself.

I spent the next couple of days researching. I named him Vittu and I kept calling him that so that he will get used to it.

I kept reminding him that I was his friend and I would never harm him in any way.

This exercise of communication went on for two weeks after which I realised that he looked forward to hearing my voice. He even sensed my presence in the room. He stopped hissing at me. He started making eye contact.

A few weeks later I brought him out his cage and left him in one of my rooms. He was very curious, he walked all around the place and after a while attempted to fly. He did fly briefly and then tapered to the ground. This could have been probably because he was always caged and he never knew what use his wings had.

Soon enough, he roamed around the house freely. I trained him to sit on a stick and I carried him around with me. After many a trial and error, he got used to hopping on to my index finger. From then on, he stood on my shoulder and head too! After about three months, I decided to get him a mate. We named her Kittu. With a little birdie beak pecking and nudging at each other, within a few days, they bonded so well.

They were very protective of each other and lived the best part of their lives for a year before one of them accidentally flew away and the other passed away shortly after developing breathing problems.