Lulu the Bird Bird

I have always had a liking for birds, especially those small parrots which would stand on your fingers / hop to and fro fingers. Blame it on my primary school science exhibition which let us play with these budgerigars. When I was young, my mum caught a few birds for me to play with but they always ended up dying. One killed itself by knocking itself in its cage and the other flew out of our car and got knocked down by another car. I must not be fated to get a pet bird.

Fast forward to present times, 30th April, I would never expect to see a pet bird again unless I get one myself. So imagine my pleasant surprise when I came home to see this little fella! My mum brought it in from outside our corridor as it was sitting outside calling out. We do not know how it landed outside when it was not strong enough to fly.

It was just sitting silently on the top of the small green container staring at me. It did not try to fly away when I approached it. Subsequently, it did hop down and attempted to flap its wings while hopping around. 

I was scared of it pecking me at first, but I realized that it was very tame and only knows how to call for food every hourly. I would let it hop onto my finger to feed it. I also stroked it along the head. I wanted to call it Lulu, but somehow the term Bird Bird stuck to it. It would call out to us when we called it or even when we pass by the cage. It is a very intelligent and tame bird. 

Feelings grew for this little bird even though my mum kept reinforcing that the little bird is not meant to stay as our pet and we would let it go when it was strong enough to fly. It would always fly to and fro our hands and the branch in the cage only and I did think of keeping it as a pet.  

The bird managed to fly up to the window grilles once while I was away but my mum managed to catch it back. Then, while I was away again, it flew away for real this time. My mum's account was that she was feeding it at night when it hopped higher and higher up to her shoulder. It was looking into the toilet and she did not bother to hold on as she did not expect it to fly. It flew straight out through the toilet window panels which were usually closed. It actually flew back in again but then flew out for real.

Lulu the bird bird flew away on Vesak day, 13th May. I hope it is doing well out there, we still can hear it call sometimes. I miss the little fella but I think it is happier flying around out there :)