HEMINGWAY

By Angie Coppla

 

I found Hemingway at a bird store/rescue in Southern New Jersey in March, 2003. I had actually stumbled onto the store one night while driving around learning the area, as I had only lived in the state for a few months. I have always had a love of birds, but had never owned one. That night, for the first time, I saw a male and female Eclectus baby, and I was in awe of their beauty. Being my first bird, I wanted to make a smart decision so I decided to think on it overnight. 

The next day I went back to the store, and that baby male was already spoken for. One of the store employees came to me and said "We have another male in the back in our rescue area. He's not a baby and he's not very pretty, and...he's not exactly nice." I laugh now when I think about those words, because as soon as I laid eyes on the plucked, growling little monster with the broken beak, I fell in love -- instantly -- I just knew that he was my bird and I immediately adopted him.

The store owner was wonderful and allowed me to keep him at the store for the next month while we got acquainted.  Hemingway, then named Melvin, was very "mean". He was two years old, and had endured a life of abuse and malnutrition with his former owners. He was housed in a small, round canary cage with no perch or toys.  The cage was so small he couldn't spread his wings. They had actually clipped his entire wing, not just flight feathers, so he would "fit" in the cage. His tail was also cut off.

The cage was rusted and in awful condition. I could have cried when they showed it to me. He had two tiny crocks in the bottom, one with dirty water and the other with black sunflower seeds. This had been his diet for two years. He didn't know how to perch as he had never had one in his cage, so he sat on the bottom corner of the cage in the rescue. He looked scared, and every time we got close to his cage he would run forward and bang his beak into the cage bars while growling at us.

I was told by the folks who surrendered him (the neighbors of those who owned him, who had reported them for abuse) that his owners plucked his feathers out with needle-nose pliers through the cage bars whenever he yelled. They smacked him in the face with the pliers, and that's why his beautiful little beak was broken and cracked. All that abuse, for two years... I wondered if I was making a mistake. Would I ever be able to even hold this bird? Every time I looked at him, I knew in my heart that he was to be mine, and we would do whatever we needed to do to work through his issues together.

I spent the first few days talking to him through the cage bars -- I talked; he growled. One day I went in after work. I expected him to rush the cage front and growl at me, but instead he walked forward slowly and pinned his eyes as I talked to him... not a single growl. We decided it was time to take him out, so they used a towel and slowly brought him out of the cage. He was so scared, I remember him shaking, and the look of terror on his face made me cry.

We put him on the large play area in the store, but since he couldn't perch he kept falling down. We let him sit on the base of the play area, which was about waist height. There he sat in the pine shavings, just looking at me and shaking. That night he actually took food from my hand. I got bit a few times over the next week, but by the end of the month I was walking around the bird store with Hemingway against my chest, cuddling him and shopping for toys and goodies for his new cage.

I  remember the night we started trusting each other like it was yesterday.  There was that moment when I suddenly knew he wasn't going to bite me, and he finally relaxed his body against me, finally knowing that I wasn't going to hit or hurt him. After that it was like magic -- we bonded so strongly... I had never loved an animal like this. He started talking more and more, and one night he put his sweet little face right next to mine and said "I love  you".  I squeezed him so hard I'm surprised he didn't burst :)

We still had minor issues linked to his former life. He would frequently wake up in the middle of the night screaming, always followed by him yelling "no Melvin, bad bird!". That broke my heart every time, but when I would awaken him from these nightmares he would literally jump on me, clinging against me and snuggling up under my chin. I knew that he now felt safe and loved.

A few months later we got Cayenne, a baby female Vosmaeri Eclectus parrot. Hemingway liked her, but he made it clear that I was his chosen mate and that he didn't want any part of the love connection that I was trying to make with Cayenne. A month after Cayenne came home, Otis came into the rescue. He was a five-year old Grand Eclectus parrot who had recently lost his mate. He instantly fell in love with my redhead, and they have been cage mates ever since. We've now been together for four years. We have spent so many nights cuddled on the sofa watching TV, playing games together on the floor, reading books,and singing songs...I love them all so much I simply cannot imagine a single day without them.

What I did not mention in the beginning of this story is the reason that I was driving aimlessly around New Jersey that first night. My husband had been killed by a drunken driver a few months before, and I picked up and moved to New Jersey for a new job.  I moved away from my family and friends, not knowing why I would separate myself from everyone who loved and supported me during that awful time. Later I realized that I had to go, for in New Jersey three feathered angels were waiting.

Hemingway was microchipped, and I traced that back to his band number, which I traced back to his original breeder. I found out that Hemingway was born on March 4th, the same day as my husband. This little green guy was destined to be a part of my life, and as I have said so many times before, it was truly he who rescued me...not the other way around.