Today, 02/09/2006, marks the end of an era. My pet Cockatiel Maxi (aka “Birdhead”) passed away last night sometime between 10pm and 8am. She was fairly old and had lived what I consider to be a good life. She was originally a breeding bird for an unknown number of years before relocating to the University of Illinois Veterinary school front desk area. There, for several years, she lived with a few other birds, many of which picked on her and pulled out her feathers. Then, in 1998, after the two screaming Cocatoo’s that also lived there caused to the administration to tell the care givers at the front desk area to find homes for the birds she came to live with myself and my roommate Anthony in our Bloomington, IL house. Rebecca asked if I’d be willing to take one of the birds since I had some experience caring for our avian friends. Having helped a little with my mothers canary flock I figured I’d give it a go. No one seemed to want Maxi because she was very frightful of people and since she was a female, couldn’t talk. I figured that was right up my alley, I’m always partial to the rejected and unwanted. So, with her donated cage and a handful of bird toys I took her home. I read up on hookbill birds and found that it was good to let them out of their cage and from then on she pretty much had the run of the house. We left her out pretty much all the time and she seemed pretty happy. She would often run on the floor rather than fly across the hallway and perch on the bottoms of our desk chairs as we played computer games. She was indeed a unique bird.
I had a few extra dollars one day and decided it would be fun to buy a webcam. Once home and set up I started to wonder what the hell I would use the camera for. Noticing Maxi squawking I thought to myself “birdcam”. So, in 1999 Maxi released version 1 of the birdcam. We could see what she was doing from work all day long. I believe she was probably the first (or one of the first) birds who could claim her own real estate on the internet. She was my good luck charm for all my LAN and online gaming I did for the next few years, often pacing back and forth doing the “Maxi dance” as I played.
After I got married Maxi came with me to Champaign, IL to live with my wife, 2 cats and a dog. She had her own room in the house and continued to be out in that room most of the time. The bird cam stayed up for another year and a half.
We moved 2 more times, each time giving her her own room. We enrolled her (and ourselves) in a class to teach the feisty winged friend to be less afraid of us and to learn simple things like “step up” onto our hands. She took to it better than I thought but soon forgot many of the pleasantries we taught her (probably due to lack of consistency on our part). We also added 3 more cats and another dog. All the animals got along great and none really bothered her. She did indeed seem to be a happy bird.
Over the next 4 years she started to slow, not flying around as much but still a spitfire. After nearly 8 years of living with me and an indetermined amount of time before that (speculated to be at least 7 years) she passed quietly in the night, succomed to old age.
She will be missed, I still think I hear her scratching around sometimes. Hopefully we were able to give her a little better life than she had for her first few years. RIP, rest assured you will be missed and never replaced