Often when I post about one of our pets, it's in the form of a requiem. In this instance, while not a memorial, I write with a mix of emotions; sadness, joy, a smidge of grief, and a wealth of elation and gratitude. For more than eighteen years, Molly has made us laugh, tried our patience, dominated our time, and generally been a major pain-in-the-ass. But we love him none-the-less.
Molly is one of seven large parrots that we had taken in and given a forever home to. The thing about birds is that other people with birds, think that you want their birds when they are finished with them. We love birds, and all animals for that matter, make no mistake about it, but too much of a good thing, becomes a burden. Its like debt. Its great spending the money but when it comes time to pay, its not so much fun, so why would I want your debt just because I have a pile of my own? Yet here we are; the dumping ground for others excess debt...I mean birds.
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The story of Molly.
Molly was in the care of the veterinarian hospital Melanie worked at in Bend, Oregon in the early 2000's. He came in for check ups and nail and feather trimming. I already had Cyrus, our African Grey, when I moved to Bend in February of 2002. Melanie and I began dating shortly after (she only wanted me for my bird). After I moved in with her and the two of us had lived together for about a year, Harold, (an Umbrella Cockatoo) came along, given to us by another client of Melanie's. Harold was an amazing and sweet bird that has since passed away. It seems that once the word was out that we had two parrots, the flood gates were opened.
Molly's former owners listed him for sale. They even approached Melanie about buying him. We were adamant that we would never pay for a parrot but we would gladly adopt an unwanted one. After they failed to sell Molly after several months of trying, the previous owners called Melanie and offered Molly, her cage and all her accessories to Melanie for free. Two hours later, we pulled up to a manufactured home in a small central Oregon town, shortly after dark. The first two things that were apparent from the moment we stepped out of my truck, was the blood curdling screams of a cockatoo and the heavy smell of cigarette smoke. Yes, even from outside the house, we could smell that musty, wet ashtray smell.
We were invited in and shown to the dining room where Molly lived. He was on top of his cage and his owners were afraid to pick him up. The cage was in a corner of the room and every inch of the wall board surrounding his cage, was eaten away to the studs, from the floor up to as high as Molly could reach from the top of his cage. Some of the studs were eaten all the way to the wall board on the opposite side of the studs, and some holes were chewed through that wall board into the next room where Molly could peak through.
You know that part of a movie where the protagonist is walking right into a trap and you are screaming at them to stop, turn around, and runaway? Yeah, my inner voice was screaming all those things and more. My stomach sank and I literally felt sick. I knew that bringing Molly home was a bad idea and that it would change our lives forever...and I was right.
Sadly, when we brought Molly home, he reeked of cigarette smoke. We showered him daily, multiple times, and it took over a month before the smell left his feathers, and worse, his breath.
Molly was a bit hostile for the first few months. He would get on the floor and chase you around the house and try to bite your feet. He would bite you if you were holding him and looked away for a second. He loved to be cuddled and preened however, and that endeared him to us.
Molly learned his place and found that he was not the alpha of the flock. Eventually, he and Harold became uneasy friends, and he settled into our home pretty comfortably. That said, Molly is also the reason that the birds were evicted from the house and exiled to the garage/bird-room forever, after about a month of him living in our home. It's the screaming...it's always the non-stop, blood curdling screaming.
I must also note here that initially we assumed that Molly was a she. After taking ownership of him, Melanie had him sexed at the same time she ran blood work on him. That's when we found out that she, was a he. We affectionately called him Moll-he after that. We still use she and he interchangeably when referring to our favorite screamer.
That brings us back to the screaming. Molly would scream because it was morning, or evening, or mid day, or because he was startled, or had a bad dream at 3am, or heard a noise, or saw a light on when it was dark, or if the lights didn't come on when they were supposed to, or when he was happy or unhappy...I could go on and on...and on...like Molly and screaming. This was a point of contention between Melanie and I, while the screaming made it impossible to leave Molly outside unattended for any length of time without a lynch mob forming and storming the yard with torches and pitch forks. I was often the one that wanted to head up the mob.
That's the thing about Moluccans. They are nicknamed "Velcro birds" for a reason, If they aren't with their chosen object of their desire, they are screaming!! After Harold passed away, this behavior became worse. It was heartbreaking and unfortunate that Molly, and the rest of our parrots would not interact with each other like Molly and Harold did. The rest of our parrots are happy to spend all day outdoors in the sun and sometimes rain, just enjoying all that the outdoors has to offer. But poor Molly, would have to go back into the bird room to spend the day alone, happy to look out the window, because he could not keep himself from screaming.
I know that I have focused mostly on the screaming but in fairness, I have to mention some of the great things about Molly. Molly is very gregarious, animated, funny, sweet, cuddly, eager to please, and a master tree and shrub pruner. Molly could turn a heavily canopied tree into a leafless, branchless stalk in a very short amount of time. We once let Molly climb a large maple tree in the back yard and then watched him drop half of the branches in about an hour. While we were all looking up at him wondering how to get him down, Molly decided to show us his skills. So absorbed was he in showing off, that he hopped out onto a limb, bit the limb in half, and promptly fell, screaming, while in utter shock that he had been dislodged from the tree, with the limb still clasped in his feet, tumbling all the way to the ground. Yup, he chewed through the branch between himself and the tree.
Molly was a show off and to grab your attention, he would stretch his neck out, tilt his head forward to show you his bedroom eyes, tap one foot up and down repeatedly and in a soft voice utter, "Bluh, bluh, bluh, bluh, bluh."
His one real word in English is "Hi". Molly liked to walk around on the ground, challenge the dogs, and chickens for the right of way, and destroy any plant or object he could get his beak on.
Molly was the best bird to take to schools, parties, and nursing homes. He was more than happy to have all the attention on him, sit on shoulders, get petted, and show off. He had his last party with us just 4 days before his big send off, and as always, he was a big hit.
Molly would let you rub his head and preen his feathers for hours. He flirted with every one, preferred men to women, and loved to be the center of attention.
While Harold and Molly would often hang out and preen each other, our other parrots were always freaked out by the way Molly would move or twitch. as a result, none of the other birds wanted to interact with him. We discussed several different options for Molly: Finding another cockatoo (Melanie's choice, not mine), buying a 100 plus acre, long and narrow plot of land and putting a house on one end and the bird room at the other end, or find a cockatoo colony where Molly could live out the rest of her life with others of her kind.
About five years ago, we came across the
Cockatoo Rescue and Sanctuary, and its owner, Lori Rutledge. While the last thing that Melanie wanted to do was to give up Molly, she did realize that we could not give him the quality of life that he deserved, nor were we prepared to take on more of these magnificent creatures and provide them with a place to live where they could make all the noise that they wanted. It was never an option for Molly to go to a new family of people. We did not want him to be passed around once the novelty wore off, and the screaming became more than they could handle. The Cockatoo Rescue and Sanctuary does not adopt out its birds and that really appealed to us. Lori introduces the birds into a colony of its own kind where the birds can live out their lives being cockatoos. However, it took 5 more years before Melanie finally conceded that it would be in Molly's best interest, as well as the interest and sanity of the rest of our parrots (and people) if we sent him off to the sanctuary. After several long conversations with Lori, Melanie readied herself for letting go of Molly this past fall. Still, we decided to keep him through the winter and send him in the spring when the weather was warm enough for Molly to go right into an outside colony.
After a health check, buying a specific carrier and bowls, and purchasing an airline ticket on Alaska Airline, Pet express, we packed Molly up early in the morning and drove to the airport to send him off. It was tough to let him go. Saying goodbye is never easy especially with such a big personality which you shared your home with for more than 18 years. We had to keep telling ourselves that Molly was going to be in her happy place and the last place she will ever live.
Lori picked Molly up from the airport in Seattle and over the course of the next week (and counting) has given us updates about Molly's introduction to the colony and his progress in settling in. It seems that he made short time of settling in and is now living his best life.
After spending his first unattended time in the colony, Lori returned to find Molly hunched down on a perch, his feathers puffed up, and enjoying an extensive preening session from two of the female "greeting party" Moluccans. When Melanie conveyed this to me, she was choked up and expressed how happy she was for him.
Molly has been very busy exploring every inch of the aviary and making new friends. After coming back inside at night (and unwillingly) after his first full day in the aviary, by the second day, he was snuggled in with flock and wanting to stay outside in the aviary with his new family.
We were surprised to learn that cockatoos, once part of the colony, quit plucking their own feathers out. They also learn how to trim their own nails from the other birds in their flock. When he molts again this fall, Molly will have all new flight feathers, all his missing chest feathers will return (most likely before he molts), and he will become indistinguishable from any of the other birds in the colony. We could not have wished for as much. Oh, and while he can scream to his hearts content, he quickly learns from the rest of the flock that that is not appropriate behavior.
While we will never see Molly again, we are relieved that he is in good hands, surrounded by other Moluccans, and will live the rest of his life the way he deserves. I know that he may grieve the loss of his family here, but the positive distractions will ease and shorting his grief if any. I tell myself that he, on some level, understands what we did and why and that he is happier for it.
Back here at home, the silence is deafening. We are realizing how much we adapted our lives to tip-toe around Molly in hopes of not setting him off on a screaming tangent, Now we no longer worry about that. The rest of our parrots, are more relaxed and seem happier, and not stressed out from the screaming. By which I mean, the screaming wore on them. All the parrots have stress bands on their feathers, especially coming out of winter when they have been trapped indoors with Molly and his screaming. JoJo, our double yellow headed Amazon, has even started singing in her cage again; something she hasn't done in a long time.
Molly changed our lives forever and we will miss him terribly. We are happy that we gave him a loving home for the past 18 years and even happier that he has found his own kind to live with.
If you would like to donate to the Cockatoo Rescue and Sanctuary on Molly's behalf, please follow the link below:
Orion turned ten while the world was coming out of the pandemic. Shortly after, he started a new school with new curriculum, new faces, new friends. He reluctantly road his mountain bike, and his favorite pastime was playing video games. Migraines plagued his first few months of the school year. Allergies came and went with the seasons, in addition, throw in a smattering of mild asthma for good measure. While he thrived in school and friendships, it began to feel like the school nurse calling to come pick up Orion, was going to be a weekly routine. 
We encouraged Orion and pushed him out of his comfort zone with his mountain biking group. It is such an extraordinary group of kids, parents and coaches, that we knew if we were persistent, he would begin to settle in and biking would become normalized to him. We love biking and wanted an activity that we could all do together as a family. This left Orion with no choice but to bike and learn to enjoy it.
As winter wound down, something began to awaken in Orion. He started eating differently. Began doing push ups. He really started to enjoy mountain biking. We pushed him to do a couple more races. He finished the next couple with a smile on his face. As he improved, he became more interested in racing. He began to get faster and better and enjoyed the competition. He began to slim down and his endurance increased. 
Then the swim team season started up, with his mom as the head coach of the team that he was automatically going to be a part of. Initially, he was resistant to the idea of swim team, however, once he was in the thick of it, he not only began to enjoy it, but he exceled at it. Orion's momentum continued. He became obsessed with swimming, and pushups, and biking, and arm wresting his mom with a goal to beat her by his eleventh birthday. He came close...very, very close. This kid was on fire this year!! 
Orion is taking his first steps out of childhood and towards being a man. Its his passion, drive, determination, and near obsession with achieving a goal that I am really proud of him for. As an unexpected bonus, with his drive, all the changes, and forward momentum, came a decrease in his migraines. He still gets them but the frequency has diminished substantially. I hope and pray that it remains this way if not disappearing altogether. 
The ten-year-old boy from one year ago is almost a completely different version of the young man that showed up for his 11th birthday. This was a marvelous year for Orion. His mom and I could not be more proud of him.
No one likes a party more than Orion. It doesn't matter whose party it is. He prefers that it be his own party and he be the one lathered with gifts, but he will settle for someone else having a party, as long as he gets the invite. Orion approaches life that way; a series of parties or more often, a lack of. Everything is either great (a party) or terrible (no party). There is no in between, no gray area, no compromises. There are days until. Painful days. He counts the days until Christmas, Easter, his birthday, and vacations. The excitement builds as the day gets closer. The night before is restless, then party day is the best day ever. Followed by the worst day ever.
especially fish (except for ceviche), and chicken (unless its nuggets). Peaches are currently his favorite fruit. followed by watermelon, grapes and any berry that he is not required to pick. 
