Adventures In Birdland

 I went to Parrots of the World out in Rockville Center last Sunday.  That's where I buy all my

Pair of Eclectus Parrots
(male on left, female on right)

Black-headed Caique

b-i-r-d-s.  I like the store because they have an incredible selection of birds and other animals as well.  Because they're on Long Island, they sell some pets that are illegal in New York City (ferrets and iguanas).  Their cages are clean, their birds are healthy, and they know their stuff.  Another great thing about the place is that on Sundays they let most of the birds out so you can spend hours just playing with them.  What I don't like about the place is the owner, Marc Merrone.  Marc is famous as a bird expert, and rightfully so.  However, I find him extremely arrogant and unapproachable. Marc and I haven't gotten along since the first time I stepped foot into that store, which was when I bought my first African Grey, Dorian, and that was quite a while ago.  So maybe it's just a personality clash thing, although how anyone could possibly not get along with adorable me is way beyond my comprehension.  Anyway, as soon as I got there yesterday, Marc informed me that he had no baby lovebirds.  In fact, he had no lovebirds at all.  "I'm lovebird-less," he declared.  It probably would have been smarter for me to call first to find out the lovebird situation before shlepping out there, but it never occurred to me that he would be out of the little suckers.  So I resigned myself to just hanging around for an hour or so, playing with the  birds, breathing in all the birdy-laden air and seeing whether or not I died.  I was almost immediately adopted by a magnificent female Eclectus Parrot.  Eclectus Parrots are quite unique in the parrot world, because they are sexually dimorphic, meaning the males and females look absolutely nothing alike.  If you want to know the sex of an African Grey, for example, you have to do a DNA test.  For all I know Oscar was really Oscarina.  Eclectus males and females are so very different in appearance that the first European ornithologists to visit their natural habitat in the Solomon Islands thought that they were two completely different species.  The males are bright green with candy-corn colored beaks and blue or red tail and wing feathers, while the females are red-headed and blue-breasted with black beaks.  They are absolutely gorgeous.  This particular female sidled right up to me and put her head down for me to scratch.  Then she stepped up onto my hand and climbed up onto my shoulder.  She was telling me in birdy language, "please take me home".  Of course Eclectus Parrots cost upward of a thousand bucks, so I had to answer, "no, sweetie...go flirt with some other potential owner". Then Barbara, one of the salespeople who has already sold me a few birds, approached me with a Black-Headed Caique hanging upside down from her outstretched hand.  There are two species of caiques, black-headed and white-bellied.  They are pretty little birds, but it's their personality (bird-ality?) that's so appealing.  They are the clown princes of the avian world.  They LOVE to play.  They'll lie on their backs on bottom of the cage and play with their toys for hours on end.  They are just adorable little bundles of playful energy.  Of course Barbara knew I'd melt when I held this little guy.  She also knew that I came in for a lovebird, which runs about $125.00, while a caique is over a grand.  Hey, you can't blame her for trying; she's probably on commission.  Bottom line: I drove a total of an hour and a half and came home with a headache and no bird.  The good news, however, is that I have suffered no ill effects from my prolonged exposure to all those feathered denizens of Nassau County.  Maybe Dr. DePalo isn't as reckless and irresponsible as we thought, huh?