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Bird Cages, Budgies and other Animals

Bird Cages, Budgies and Other Animals

As a child, my first pet was a green budgerigar. It proved to be a major disappointment!

I hadn’t really wanted a budgie until I discovered that they could talk. I then decided that the budgie might be quite cool after all.

Sadly the little fellow never uttered a word in the nine years he spent living in my kitchen.

We also acquired a cat which my mother informed me had stolen the bird’s tongue!


Cats and Bird Cages Don’t Mix

The cat devoted his life to trying to get into the bird cage. He did occasionally manage to get his paw in but I couldn’t see how he could have stolen the tongue. Young as I was, my sense of logic told me that the bird’s lack of speech might be more to do with being terrified of the feline assassin than the lack of a tongue.

The cat would also periodically jump onto the roof of the bird cage. The result was usually a hideous crash as the cage toppled over followed by a lot of hysterical squawking by the poor budgie.

I largely lost interest in the budgie. Bird cages never featured in my home again but they might have done after I met an altogether more talented bird.

Dogs and Bird Cages?

I was visiting a friend one day and was surprised to discover that there was a bird cage in her living room. This seemed a little odd as she didn’t own a bird. She did own a dog though and he seemed quite interest in the cage’s occupant. There was a white budgie in the cage and I wondered over to meet him. He immediately screamed "what are you looking at?" and I jumped back in surprise. I then fell over the dog and nearly broke my neck.

A budgie that could actually talk! Cool!

The budgie turned out to be called Snowy and to belong to my friend’s Mum. I soon discovered that Snowy had an extensive vocabulary but one which would have been incomprehensible to most people because he had issues with pronunciation. He would try to copy what my friend’s mother said and then mix up the letters. She would often inform the budgie that she was going to the shops in Uxbridge. The budgie was in the habit of crying out "I’m just going to the flops in shuxbridge"!

Sorry Snowy!

Hilariously the bird had also acquired its owner’s rather strong Sunderland accent. I made the mistake of commenting on Snowy’s adorable Geordie accent. An observation which both the owner and the bird took offense to!

Snowy had issues with his grasp of the English language but he was a talented mimic when it came to music. His favourite ditties were TV theme tunes and he would often produce a fabulous rendition of the Eastenders music. Unfortunately he would often choose to perform his masterpiece when we were trying to watch
something else.

That bird was wonderfully entertaining. If my budgie had been more like Snowy I might have been hooked. To this day I adore talking birds I never tire of hearing them.


