"Too" Scary!

Most of my regular readers know about our Bare Eyed Cockatoo (BE Too) Meeko.


Recently, Bald Man and I let her wings grow out and she is now fully flighted.



There is a lot of discussion among parrot owners about the pros and cons of clipping. Some of the reason to clip include not losing your bird and to help with an aggressive attitude. Bald Man and I have been working on recall training, but Meeko hasn't been particularly cooperative. And then, recently, Meeko has become very aggressive. She has been buzzing my head and sometimes landing on my shoulder only to bite my ear or head. After the last week, last night I decided I was at the end of it and I just can't cope with the extra stress of Meeko flying. Oh I forgot to mention that she also likes to fly into the kitchen and clear off the counter (meaning throwing everything on the counter onto the floor, including full boxes of cereal and chewing the nipples off of my June Bug's bottles and pacifiers). Bald Man and had a long talk and decided it was in our family unit's best interest to clip Meeko again. We waited a day too long to have this talk.
Today while the UPS man was at the door, Meeko saw her chance and flew out the barely opened door. Dang bird flew away! And kept flying away from me. I lost sight of her pretty quick at first, but I kept calling her in the nicest voice possible. "Meeko, Meeko! Come here baby!" Inside I am thinking, when I get you home, we are going to have cockatoo soup for dinner! She actually squawked right back at me and began to fly in circles around our apartments, right above my head, but she wouldn't come and land on my shoulder. Brat. After a while, she got tired and decided to land in a tree. A tree, blessedly, very near someone's third story balcony. After watching for a bit and seeing she probably wasn't going to fly away real quick, I took the risk and ran up to that apartment. Thank goodness they were home, and didn't think I was too crazy and let me in. I ran out onto the balcony, leaned over and there was my crazy burdy, hanging upside down! Goof ball bird. She was very happy to see me, and happy to step up for me. I wrapped her in my coat and shoved her in her cage. She is NOT coming back out until she goes to get clipped. And if we decide we want her to be flighted again, we will work on the recall training BEFORE she can fly. Brat bird. Geez, she almost gave me heart attack!
And I am not sure what it says about me, but even as I was so very scared about her flying away and getting frozen in our freezing Utah temps, I noticed how incredibly beautiful she looked sailing along in the blue sky, her crest all up and her squawks sounding out joyfully, at least from my vantage point. I don't know, it is a crying shame she isn't in Australia living her natural life. Although even I as think that, they are varmits there and the local farmers shoot them to keep them from damaging their crops. I don't know, is a longer life a good trade for losing your freedom if you are a bird? A moot point for Meeko, this isn't Australia, it is Utah, we have hawks, eagles and the winter temps that want to eat her, so in her cage and clipped wings it is.