Smoky the Parrot

"Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth, And makes us wiser than the birds of heaven?’"

Job 35:11

On Wednesday of last week, Daddy had finished weedwacking a customer's pond and fenceline and we had been riding their horses, looking at their animals, fishing, (or watching someone else fish) when a bird flew into a tree nearby. We decided to go investigate what it was since we saw a glimpse of red. Alexis, Seth, and I (Kimber) went underneath the tree. Daddy had said that he thought it was a parrot and sure enough...it was! The parrot was up fairly high but then he slowly climbed his way down the branches till he was on the bottom branch. Daddy then suggested we go get the Cheezits out of the car and offer it one (Polly want a cracker???). Well, they got the bag and brought it near it as I went back to the truck to get my camera. When I re-emerged the parrot was on Seth's shoulder eating a Cheezit!

This is what I saw.

It was so neat seeing him just sitting there, calmly eating a cracker like it was completely normal. Obviously it is a domestic parrot since there are no wild parrots in Virginia! :) He must've escaped from a cage or something because he even has a metal band on one of his legs.

Look at his beautiful head!

The feathers are so beautiful with the gray and then the white tips!

Holding a cracker.

This is how he ate: he would take the cracker with his beak, then transfer it to his foot (he's standing on one leg now), and slowly take nibbles off of the cracker until it was all gone.

His tail feathers were so pretty too!

Such a pretty bird!
(Do I keep saying that?? :)

This is the picture I took right before Daddy decided to try and catch him and put him in the truck to take home until we could find the owner.

Looks pretty peaceful, right?

Not! He grabbed Daddy's fingers at least 5 times with his sharp beak and broke Daddy's skin twice! Ouch! Daddy went up to it, slowly positioned his hands around it and then grabbed it real quick. Of course parrot didn't appreciate that so he swiveled his teeny head around and started biting Daddy. It was hard for Daddy to get away from him because their head rotates like 360 degrees! So finally he wrapped him up in his shirt to try and transport him into the truck safely.

In the truck.

This picture is really dark but I thought it was neat seeing just his gray and white head.

Eating a pretzel.

Yummy!

And, if you were wondering, the name for Mr. (or Mrs.?) Parrot is...Smoky. We're hoping to find an owner for him soon but for now he's staying in the laundry room in my rabbit's old cage. We've been feeding him pistachios, fruit, Cheezits, tomatoes, etc. Daddy gets him out at least once a day and we feed him mandarin oranges and he flies around sometime to different people as they hold their hands up. Smoky is extremely gentle when you're handing him food that I even let Lydia give him pistachios (Lydia thinks its so much fun!). If anyone knows of a person who owns an African Grey parrot and has lost one recently please let us know (leave a comment or email us). We found Smoky in the New Kent County of Virginia. If you need any more information about Smoky for someone, please contact us at wassfam@aol.com. Thanks!

All for Jesus,
Kimber

P.S. - We think we may know someone who might be Smoky's owner but we can't get a hold of them right now so we're just waiting to be able to reach them. I'll let you know how things go! If we can't find the owner we'll just end up keeping him and probably teaching him some tricks and things!

P.S.S - Also...if there are any parrot experts reading this please let us know what we should do to make sure Smoky is comfortable and well fed!