My Dusky Conure, T Bird

T bird has been gone for a year-and-a-half now. There isn't a day that I don't think about her and miss her a lot. I still don't have many photos of her in digital format, but here is one of them. She loved to hang out in my husband's shirt. She'd crawl in and turn around so she could see what was going on. She knew she was cute and always got lots of attention when she did this:

My Dusky Conure, T-bird.

On June 5, 2005, my 16-year-old Dusky Conure drowned in our toilet. My husband and I were away at my 20th high school reunion in Southern California at the time. While we own our home, we have a few housemates to help us pay the mortgage. At that time there was a young woman of 19 living with us and a young relative of mine who is 23.

It had always been stressful for me to leave T-bird with people while we went on vacation. It didn't matter if we were gone one night or three weeks, I'd always worry about her. Living in a small town, it's been pretty much impossible to find other people who are parrot lovers--people we could trust to care for her properly.

My relative had been around parrots her whole life. I felt quite comfortable leaving T-bird under her care. Before leaving, though, I asked her if she was willing to care for T-bird. I told her if she didn't want to I wouldn't be offended--I'd have my husband's friend come over to care for T-bird. My relative agreed to take care of T-bird.

We drove down on a Wednesday. The day after we arrived in So Cal, we called home to check up on things. No one answered the phone so we left a message to call us. No one called us back. Friday we called again and the same thing happened. Saturday was my reunion. We were camping after the reunion so a phone was difficult to access. (We do not like cell phones so we don't own one.) Sunday morning we woke early at the campground. I heard the birds singing and thought of T-bird. I suddenly felt very anxious but I dismissed the feeling! We drove into town and had breakfast. The anxious feeling continued. I told my husband we should try to call home but we ended up not doing it--we needed to get on the road.

Sunday night we stopped for dinner a few hundred miles south of our home. It was my husband's birthday and I treated him to a great meal. We were going to camp out that night but decided to keep on going. I had to work Monday at 1pm. Around 11pm we arrived home.

Our house has large windows that look out onto the driveway. Every single interior light was turned on. I could see T-bird's cage from the car. As I approached the front door I could see her cage was turned at a funny angle. The cage door was closed and she wasn't there! My husband had the house key. I started panicking--I couldn't get into the house to find out what was going on! I burst into the house only to be assaulted by incredibly toxic fumes--bleach and...something else. The fumes literally almost made me pass out! We looked for T-bird in all her hiding places--the shelf above the washing machine, behind our clothesrack, a certain kitchen cupboard that has no door, and the bathroom (which was her play area.) Neither housemate was home.

I should explain her bathroom play area since I can feel people cringing at the thought: Our house has two bathrooms. There's the main big one, which our housemates use, and a very small one that has a toilet, stall-type shower, a very small sink and a window that looks into the forest. This bathroom is out-of-the-way but I could easily see her in there from our kitchen. I kept this bathroom clean and only my husband and I used it. T-bird loved to chew wood. I'd take clean wood pieces and bolt them to the wall for her to chew on. She'd cling to the wood and chew for hours. I left the sink dripping very slowly--she loved to just see the water. She'd also drink or sometimes decide to bathe in the sink. She also loved to sit on the windowsill and look outside. Sometimes I'd come into the bathroom, place my chin on the windowsill and look into her eyes. She'd gently preen my face. I'd preen her back. I had a sign that said to always leave the toilet seat lid down, as I was aware of the danger. It seemed to be an ideal play area. I'd check on her frequently. If I couldn't physically be there, I'd make a certain contact call that T-bird and I had developed. If she whistled back I knew she was "doing her thing" in the bathroom. If there was silence, I immediately went to find her. She was big on finding "nest spots".

I couldn't find T-bird anywhere! I called her name repeatedly--nothing! While searching for her I went into the housemate bathroom to discover a bucket full of bleach and Lime-away mixed together. There was pure bleach all over the floor too. The bathroom had bottles of other cleaning products all over the floor. It looked like the place had been ransacked. I began to get hysterical. I imagined her at the vet from fume-inhalation...or dead. We called our housemate's parents. They contacted her. She called us with the news that T-bird had drowned in the toilet. My husband asked her where T-bird's body was. Our housemate said she was in the refrigerator!

Upon hearing the news I felt like my blood had turned to ice water. A huge weight seemed to appear on my shoulders, pushing me down. My throat seemed to be filled with solidifying concrete. My husband opened the refrigerator to find a shoebox. We opened the shoebox and saw her sodden little body. We both started crying. I screamed with horror and rage! I picked her cold, stiff body up and put her to my face, expecting that wonderful bird smell. Nothing but the smell of toilet water. I screamed at the top of my lungs for a long time.

Even in death, she was beautiful. Her dry head feathers shone coppery-bronze, her long tail and wing feathers sparkled royal blue, iridescent green and black. I couldn't stand to see her like that though, so we went out and buried her in our front yard right away. I just didn't want too many memories of what she looked like dead. I also couldn't stand having to try to sleep through the night, knowing I'd have to bury her in the morning. That night was a living nightmare--my visualizations of her struggling for her life in the toilet refused to leave my mind. My life had turned into pure horror.

The next morning I found a note on the floor by my bedroom door. It was from my relative. She explained that T-bird had been under the care of our other housemate when she had drowned. I thought, "That's interesting, I thought you were the one who was taking care of her!" Our housemate admitted to taking T-bird out of her cage early Sunday morning and putting her in the bathroom. She'd been screaming. Our housemate also admitted to seeing the toilet seat up and not realizing the danger. If my relative had bothered to take care of T-bird properly and wheel her cage into our bedroom and cover her cage so she could sleep, she never would have started screaming. (That was our nightly routine.)

In the terrible days that passed I found out from our housemate and from simple observation that T-bird had not been cared for at all by my relative. At the most she'd dump a scoop of seeds in her dish on her way out the door. T-bird never got fresh water, or vegetables and fruit from my relative while we were gone. Our housemate had attempted to care for her even though she had never had a bird or any other "pet". She did dump some frozen corn on top of the rotten peas in her vegetable bowl. But she simply had no idea what to do. T-bird's food was either rotten or covered with poop and her water bowl was slimy and full of seed hulls. T-bird had spent the night out in the living room, probably with the lights on. (My relative always left every light in the house on--she moved in and our electricity bill tripled.)

My husband questioned my relative about how our toilet seat had gotten left up. She said a friend of her's had left it up. We found out there had been no "friend" at the house.

My relative lived at our house for another two months. I was so angry I was unable to confront her about her lying and sheer laziness.

T-bird was my best friend for my entire adult life. I found her at a pet store when I was only 21. I remember walking into the store, wanting to eventually purchase a Moustache Parakeet or a Dusky Conure. I played with a baby Moustache Parakeet. She was beautiful and friendly but not cuddly. I went over to some cages against the window and looked in one that was at eye-level. I saw a young Conure alone in the cage, on it's back, apparently dead! I muttered, "Oh my God!" The "dead" Conure immediately opened her eyes and rolled over. She waddled over to me, looked me in the eyes and said, "Tweak!" I ran to the store owner and purchased her. It seemed so right. T-bird was there for me during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which she narrowly survived, several painful breakups with boyfriends, bad jobs... She kept me laughing through so many hard times. She was always so spunky and cheerful. She could be a brat, but not often. She loved to lie on her tummy in the palm of my hand and purr. I'd preen her head. She'd puff up and close her eyes. She looked so cute! She loved to hang out inside my husband's shirt--she'd poke her head out just below his neck. I'd start laughing and say, "Achhh! My husband has another head!" She'd play with us under the bedcovers, doing somersaults and wrestling with our fingers...She laid two sterile eggs at age 15--one while sitting on my hand and one in my lap. I still have her eggs in the freezer. I can still hear her saying "Baby bird!" I'd joke and say, "You're not a baby bird anymore...you're 16!" She'd repeat herself. She'd say that phrase when she wanted affection.

I'm devastated. I cry almost every day. The feeling of utter desolation has been unbelievable! This has been worse than any human relative or friend dying! I feel so guilty for trusting an untrustworthy person. Thinking about the way she died makes me want to throw up. I just can't get the image of her struggle out of my mind. The water in our toilet is only four inches deep. T-bird was eleven inches long. It's possible she could have spent hours in the toilet and suc%%bed to hypothermia instead of drowning. I'll never know.

Thank you all, for bearing with me during this long story.