In one corner of our dining room Jelly Bean & Starr inhabit space dedicated to all things feathered.  They are my resident parakeets.  Starr is a beautiful green/yellow and Jelly Bean is a, well, sort of strange looking albino.  He/she is the subject of this story.  The bird has not layed eggs in over a year, so I guess the conclusion takes me to male orientation…I think.  This bird is amazing in that it pulls at the “locked” (miniature clothes pins) gate next to its seed cup and manages to disengage the pins, opening the door 1/3 of the way up.  Once, I found two clothes pins broken and on the cage floor.  Houdini lives there.  Another idiosyncrasy this bird is attributed with is the hammering out of some sort of avian morse code.  Pecking on the cage rim with rhythm in keeping with the metronome on our piano.

What a weird, strange set of habits.  I question whether it is really all a cry for help & freedom from her confinement.  My son has said, “Birds are creatures of flight, and then we restrict them to a cage.”  Sigh.