 The Tiniest Cockatiel
When I first moved to San Francisco in the Fall of 1993, I realized how much I missed the company of a pet. My childhood was spent growing up around cats and once I was living on my own, I noticed how lonely a home can be without the presence of an animal companion. However, I couldn't get a kitten as I was living in the *smallest* studio apartment imaginable! I was out shopping with a friend one day and we were discussing how hard it is to have a cat or dog in the city. My friend suggested I get a bird as a pet. I had never thought about a bird before and my response was one typical of non-bird owners, "A bird?! Are you kidding? A bird's not a real pet! You can't cuddle a bird!" Well, we happened to be passing by an exotic bird store and my friend dragged me in to look at the cute little birdies. Up until this point, I only thought about pet birds as something that sat in a cage, jumped around a lot, pooped a lot, wouldn't let you touch it and, in general, wasn't what you would call a very intelligent creature. Hey, like I said, I had never thought very much about birds as pets and personally, had never known anyone who had one! ;-)
We walked into a very dark, cluttered and generally dirty pet store crammed with bird cages. Humoring my friend, I walked around the store apathetically looking over some pretty unhappy looking birds in very small cages. I stayed in the middle of the store not getting too close to any of the cages that lined both walls. My friend was doing his best to get me interested in the birds. He called me over to look at a cage sitting on a table packed, and I mean PACKED, full of baby cockatiels. He was excitedly telling me that a cockatiel would be the perfect "apartment" pet and that they can be extremely friendly and affectionate. He started taking some of the cockatiels out of the cage to show me just how "cute" they were. The birds were terrified and kept flying out of his hand to land clinging to the side of their cage. I was not impressed!
"Look at these beautiful yellow ones! Cockatiels can talk, you know!"
"Yeah, whatever!"
"Look they're on sale! Don't you want to take one home?!"
"I'm NOT buying a bird!"
As my friend kept trying to find a baby bird he could hold onto, I walked up to the cage, looked in and jokingly said aloud, "OK, so which one of you guys wants to come home with me?" To my complete astonishment, the smallest, ugliest thing in the cage, jumped from its perch to the floor of the cage and proceeded to trample its cage mates to get to me. The other birds screeched in protest and pecked at the little bird that was climbing over them. That little bird was undeterred as she had answered my invitation and had at last found her "person." I found myself staring down at a little ball of grey feathers that was gazing up at me with sweet round eyes, her crest pasted back against her head to really work the "puppy dog" effect. My friend stopped juggling the 3 baby cockatiels he was desperately trying to hold on to when he saw the little bird making her way to me. "Oh my god! I can't believe that! That's amazing!", he said. I hadn't REALLY expected an answer to my question and was so shocked that I feigned disinterest and walked away trying to figure out what just happened. Out of the corner of my eye I could make out a little 'tiel crest peaking over the bottom of the cage, like a shark fin, darting to and fro and I could hear the angry squawks of birds being trod upon. Every so often the crest would disappear and a little head would pop up to peer out the bars of the cage to see if the nice lady who invited a cockatiel to come home with her was still there. I walked to the other side of the cage and sure enough, that ugly little bird had been trying to follow me everywhere I went, not wanting to loose sight of me. I looked down at the little gray cockatiel one last time and you know what? It wasn't ugly at all. It was the sweetest, most beautiful little creature I had ever seen. I turned to my friend, still juggling baby birds, pointed in the cage and said, "I want that one." He made a disgusted face and said, "they're all the same price you know. Even these yellow ones! Why don't you get a pretty one?" I repeated, "I want this one." The owner of the store walked up to us and asked, "so have you guys found a bird you like?" I turned to him, pointed at the bird and said, "I want that one." The owner stopped for a second and said, "they're all the same price you know. Even the yellow ones." I almost burst out laughing. I just smiled and said, "no, that's the one I want." He shrugged his shoulders and said, "to each his own..." and went to get a box. I walked out of that store with a cage, toys, food, all the books on cockatiels I could carry and a small box containing a tiny, not-so-ugly, gray cockatiel.
Pea-chan turned out to be the most affectionate, loving and intelligent creature I've ever seen. The second I got her home, she charged out of the carry box, up onto my shoulder and snuggled against my neck. She spent the first week glued to me, rubbing her head against my neck begging for head scratches. As a baby, she learned a number of tricks on command, learned to answer to her name and was sweet to anyone willing to give her a head scratch. Pea-chan seemed small to me at first but I thought that was because she was a baby. Never having seen another cockatiel, I figured she was a normal size adult when she didn't grow any. When I took her to the vet, they said she was the smallest cockatiel they had ever seen. A normal adult 'tiel is around 100 grams. Pea-chan, at her heaviest, is 64 grams. She also has bare patches on her wings and I've never seen feathers grow in ever. The vet believes that her small size is due to being malnourished as a baby and that those bare patches will never grow feathers. I later realized that she was living in horrible, dirty conditions. So Pea-chan may never be a large stunning cockatiel but she more than makes up for it with her "big" personality.
The Story Behind Her Name
Pea-chan's name is actually spelled Pii-chan but I was afraid people would mispronounce it. There is a man in Japan that is known as the Crane Man of Kushiro. He has devoted his life to saving the cranes and has been one of the few people to successfully hatch and raise baby cranes. He searches for any abandoned crane nests on the reserve where he lives and brings back the eggs. He is regarded as an expert in cranes and has even taught his baby cranes to fly. He names all the chicks Pii-chan. It doesn't mean anything in Japanese but it's a really cute name. So, I decided to name Pii-chan after these lovely noble cranes that are brought into this world by the love and devotion of a single man in Japan. |
Hey, stop sneaking around!
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