Here begins the story of how I almost froze the Rickeybird.
I will be a little out of touch for a couple of weeks (more or less). So I decided this would be a great time to post this little tidbit and then run for cover!
I am always sympathetic when members, especially newer ones, post confessions about awful mistakes they have made with their birds. I always try to offer comfort and assure them that I've done worse.
TO WIT!
The Rickeybird will be 40 years old on his next birthday, but there have been several occasions when that milestone was endangered. Here's the worst.
It was back in New Mexico circa 1986, when the Rb was only a couple of years old. Even back then, he had his own room (THE NOISE, you know!). It was an early winter day... sunny and 70-ish degrees. I raised his windows that day. I had a hectic social schedule that Friday evening and somehow, stupidly, forgot to put him to bed properly.
I went to sleep at about 1 a.m., and woke up at about 8.
As often happens, that night's temperature had fallen to below FREEEEZING. That's the high desert for you. And his room was ARCTIC.
When I opened his room, I instantly realized the horror at hand. He was huddled on a bottom perch; his feathers were visibly vibrating and shaking; his feet were white and seemingly motionless; his eyes were half-closed. I picked him up, gently prying his little toes from the perch, agonizing over the possibility that I might break them. I gingerly eased him down my shirt for warmth (EEEK! He was an ice cube!) and began to rub and jostle him and scream his name. In about ten minutes, he climbed up out of my neck-hole and incredibly, seemed FINE! He didn't have anything to say for another haIf hour, and then suddenly burst forth with a lovely Patagonian morning serenade. I spent the day feeding him and cuddling him.
Here endeth the story of how I almost froze the Rickeybird.
I will be a little out of touch for a couple of weeks (more or less). So I decided this would be a great time to post this little tidbit and then run for cover!
I am always sympathetic when members, especially newer ones, post confessions about awful mistakes they have made with their birds. I always try to offer comfort and assure them that I've done worse.
TO WIT!
The Rickeybird will be 40 years old on his next birthday, but there have been several occasions when that milestone was endangered. Here's the worst.
It was back in New Mexico circa 1986, when the Rb was only a couple of years old. Even back then, he had his own room (THE NOISE, you know!). It was an early winter day... sunny and 70-ish degrees. I raised his windows that day. I had a hectic social schedule that Friday evening and somehow, stupidly, forgot to put him to bed properly.
I went to sleep at about 1 a.m., and woke up at about 8.
As often happens, that night's temperature had fallen to below FREEEEZING. That's the high desert for you. And his room was ARCTIC.
When I opened his room, I instantly realized the horror at hand. He was huddled on a bottom perch; his feathers were visibly vibrating and shaking; his feet were white and seemingly motionless; his eyes were half-closed. I picked him up, gently prying his little toes from the perch, agonizing over the possibility that I might break them. I gingerly eased him down my shirt for warmth (EEEK! He was an ice cube!) and began to rub and jostle him and scream his name. In about ten minutes, he climbed up out of my neck-hole and incredibly, seemed FINE! He didn't have anything to say for another haIf hour, and then suddenly burst forth with a lovely Patagonian morning serenade. I spent the day feeding him and cuddling him.
Here endeth the story of how I almost froze the Rickeybird.
