Tag: gotcha day

A letter to Kelly on her second Gotcha Day

I cannot believe it has been two years since Kelly came home with us. It simultaneously feels like no time at all and forever. Celebrating a budgie gotcha day is a good time to pause and reflect on what your little friend has brought to your life. I wrote a letter to Toby on her second gotcha day and thought I would continue the tradition with Kelly. Given all the time I’ve spent writing about Kelly’s penchant for biting everything in sight (especially humans) you might think this post would take a turn for the negative. But, there’s much to admire about this little lady too!

the second time we saw KellyThis picture is from the second time I ever saw Kelly, when she was still a baby being weaned at the Rensselaer Bird Center. How could this little baby not steal your heart?

What I most admire and appreciate about Kelly is her sense of adventure. She’s the first one to expand a territory, discover something new, and show Toby and Kevin that there’s nothing to be scared about. This enhances the other budgies’ lives immeasurably. Even if there are prices to pay for having a bold spirit in your flock (like chewed up tables and painting frames), it’s totally worth it to have a fearless flock leader.

Kelly's recent fascination with the microwaveIf I’m being honest, it also keeps me on my toes in a way that I enjoy. Kelly is engaged with the house and the world around her in a way that Toby and Kevin aren’t.  They are perfectly content to stay on their loops (little Westworld reference there), but Kelly wants more from life.

I also love how this engagement applies to the human members of the flock too. Even when all she wants to do is test our skin strength, Kelly is the budgie who is most reliably interested in being with her people. Sure, most of the time it devolves into an attempted mole removal, but when you walk up to Kelly’s cage she is super excited to see you and wants to hop on your shoulder and be part of your action.

Can I pierce this ear for you ma'am?In her calmer moments she does also love preening hair and eyebrows and chilling out. Kelly is a total mama’s girl, nothing wrong with that! She will pal around with Patrick if I’m not home, but I’m the clear winner of favorites at present, which I would never turn down.

Lastly, she is a special beauty. I mean it is hard to look at her precious angel face, even while she’s chewing up the grocery list, and not want to just coo endearments at her. I have to assume there’s some kind of intentional delicate balance at work here, like, I can get away with “this much” absolute evil as long as I look like an angel that flitted down to earth.

Gorgeous angel budgieA very happy second gotcha day to Kelly. Thank you for keeping me on my toes and biting your way into my heart!

Celebrating a “Gotcha Day”

Before parakeets I had never heard the term Gotcha Day, which means celebrating the day you got a pet instead of the day it was born. This is a cute alternative to celebrating a birthday when you don’t know the date your pet was born. For birds, celebrating their birthday is usually called their Hatch Day instead, or the day they came out of their egg. It’s weird, but even though we got Kelly from a local breeder I don’t know her hatch day.  I just never bothered to ask at the time, and it didn’t occur to me until much later that I should have found out so we could celebrate her hatch day properly!

We are fast approaching Kelly’s first Gotcha Day and I wanted to take some time to reflect on the past year of her life.

When Patrick first picked out Kelly at the RBC she was a couple of weeks older than the rest of her clutch and seemed so calm and composed in comparison to all the little half-feathered babies. We knew we wanted a confident parakeet who didn’t seem afraid of the world the way Toby was, so Kelly looked like a natural fit. We hoped she was a boy but felt that even if she was a girl things would work out.

Taking her home was a way different experience than bringing home Toby, who came home in a carboard box. Kelly was riding in style in her Travel Carrier and was curious about everything she saw outside the car window. We were shocked at how fearless she was and how interested in the world.

Once she was home she was definitely intimidated by her new surroundings and spent her entire first day motionless on a single perch, but after that she quickly adapted and began doing crazy baby acrobatics in her cage and demanding to be let out very frequently.

Which was our first big challenge, not having had a clipped parakeet before we had no idea how much work it would be to keep her safe and help her not be so frustrated when she saw Toby flying every day and couldn’t stay with her.

As Kelly matured we realized we had a biting budgie on our hands (literally!).  And while we were dealing with her aggressive tendencies we also realized that having a much more adventurous budgie meant making more modifications to the house. So far we’ve protected our dining room table successfully and had to swap around all of our artwork after she became obsessed with chewing wood frames.

Coming up I think we’re going to have to change out a ceiling lamp she’s recently taken a shine to, and of course we are still working on the biting. It’s like parents who have the first kid and it’s an angel who stays in one place and is very sweet, and then have a second kid who’s into everything and comes as a total surprise!

But, as I always add, there are so many things to love about Kelly that it really outweighs the negatives. Even if it causes me anxiety, I love her adventurous spirit and that she encourages Toby to try new things. I like how great she is at being a parakeet, she keeps her nails and beak in great shape all on her own and even helps me keep the cage clean by picking poops off the bars. She’s a good eater who’s always willing to try something new, and she’s extremely healthy.  As much as she likes biting us, she also does enjoy being part of the family. She’s always interested in what we’re doing and wants to be with us, probably more than Toby, who is a bit of a home body.

So – a very happy Gotcha Day to Kelly, I’m so glad that she came home with us!