Free Pickles The Parrot: A Humorous Look At Life With An African Grey by Georgi Abbott Page B

curious people approach us, it’s
sometimes difficult to get him to speak, he usually just laughs at
them. One night, we were cornered by a group of children who kept
asking Pickles to talk. “Speak Pickles, speak!” they all chimed.
Eventually, Pickles responded with a deep “Woof!” The kids thought
this was hilarious and tried to get him to do it again. “Speak
Pickles! Bark! Speak!” until Pickles ordered them all to “Go
home!”
    Sometimes people want to hold him and Pickles
is willing to sit on anybody’s hand but we’re careful who we allow
contact with because sometimes he will run up an arm to the
shoulder. If we think people can deal with this and not freak out,
we’ll hand Pickles off to them. We don’t usually allow Pickles on
our shoulders because sometimes he refuses to leave and it’s too
easy to get a nipped ear if he’s irked, or he will hide right
between your shoulder blades, where you can’t reach him.
    All too often, for some reason, people like
to poke their fingers in his face. Are people really that retarded?
One time, I set Pickles and the backpack down on a picnic table to
chat with a couple of women. One of the women started to poke her
finger through the bar and I told her that he doesn’t like fingers
in his face and won’t hesitate to bite. She couldn’t resist and
while my back was turned, she went for it. I turned around just in
time to see Pickles with a firm hold of the tip of her finger. His
eyes glazed over in ecstasy as he held on tight and began to grind.
Anybody who owns a bird from the parrot family knows how painful
the beak grind can be, and Pickles was giving his all. I watched in
horror as blood appeared and started to pool on the bottom of the
cage.
    The woman pretended it was no big deal as I
banged on the cage, desperately trying to unbalance Pickles but all
that did was make him grab on harder as he flapped for balance.
Crap. The woman was about to drop to her knees in agony but she
maintained her composure as I worked at getting her loose. Finally,
I poked my finger next to hers and Pickles went for the new meat
just as I yanked my finger back. “SCORE!!” he announced, through a
bloody beak.
    I turned to inspect the idiot woman’s finger.
She had quite the wound but still maintained that it wasn’t a big
deal. “It doesn’t hurt” she said, through clenched teeth. Tears
were forming but she insisted, “I’m okay.”
    Just then, Neil joined us and I told him what
happened. It was obvious what he was thinking…“What kind of
hair-brain DOES that?!” but all he managed was “Huh.” He then asked
me to come with him and he showed me a nestling crow, lying beneath
a 30- foot pine tree. He looked basically full-grown and at first
we thought he was, and that he’d been injured. All he could do was
lie on his side, mouth gaping, and shuffle his feet in the dirt in
an attempt to get away from us.
    I knew there were 2 nests above, because I
walked past this tree often and had been watching the baby crows in
their various maturing stages. The nests weren’t very high, just
feet above my head. I glanced up and there were no other babies
left, just adult crows cawing and dive-bombing us in protection of
their young one. We weren’t sure what to do but in the meantime I
went and got some water soaked bread in case he was hungry or
thirsty.
    It was difficult to get the bread in his
beak, even though his mouth was open. If we did, the crow wouldn’t
swallow it. Neil went for pliers and we fed him with that—like the
beak of an adult, feeding it’s young by getting it deep. By getting
the food to the back of his throat, he was able to swallow. He was
obviously hungry or thirsty, and he took quite a bit.
    We decided he should be placed back in the
nest, but which one? Neil got a long stick, fashioned a bucket to
it, raised the crow to the lowest nest and tipped him in. I don’t
know if we placed him in the wrong nest and some adults threw him
out, or if he