In remembrance of Spanky

Spanky was a wonderful creature that brought great joy and enjoyment into my life, and to many others. Since Spanky is no longer with us, I wanted to record some of the things about him, that were fun and special.

Spanky was a good talker, but even though having a parrot that can talk is something that seems really important to some people, other things about Spanky actually were much more important to us. The important things involved his relationship to us and the way he related to us. What was really special was when his talking was relevant to situations he was in.

Every day when I went out the door (near his cage), we would say goodbye to each other, and he would say "bye bye". He would sometimes say this when we were zipping the boys packs up just before they went off to school. When I got home, he would fan his tail, get excited and sometimes even zoom his eyes. Often in the morning when we came out from down the hall he would greet us by lifting his wings (something that parrots just do).

We spent some time working on teaching him the alphabet. He would never run through the whole thing, but if we began saying letters, he would begin tossing in his own. Some were particular favorites, such as "A" and "Q". When we had him over at a friends home, they said he was singing the song "Happy Birthday", which amazed us because we don't recall ever teaching him this, or hearing him do this at our home.

Food is special to Amazon Parrots, and Spanky had many favorite things. He got in the habit of sharing my breakfast (which for him was most often a piece of my pancake), and if he didn't get a piece, I would see him with his head and body down fluttering his wings and begging. He adored ice-crean and particularly cheesecake and would say "mmmmmm" to beg for some if you brought some near to his cage. (He didn't get large quantities of this sort of thing, and never with chocolate).

Every day we tried to give him something fresh and different in his "variety bowl". He enjoyed apples, bananas, corn, peas, carrots, grapes, and many other things. He would absolutely never accept meat in any form in all the time we had him! If we offered him the same fruit for several days running, he would tire of it on the second or third day.

Because Spanky liked to perch on his food bowls, we arranged a perch right next to the bowls so he would use the perch instead. This meant that to get food he had to reach down to get it (which we figured was good exercise). Sometimes we would get him talking when he was munching with his head down in the bowl, which was funny because of the muffled echo to the sound.

Spanky liked to play games through the bars of his cage, and we had a chair just next to the cage to visit with him. One game was for him to reach his foot way out of the cage to grab your finger. Sometimes this was with the object of pulling it in so he could bite it. Usually this was not his mood and he was happy to be touched and teased in a friendly was through the cage. When he got excited doing this, he would hang upside down and lower himself into his food bowl and stick one foot in the air. Just part of the silly way Amazons like to play.

One of Spanky's favorite things was to be out of the cage, and usually this meant riding on my shoulder if I was walking around, or perching on my knee if I was sitting and reading a book. Having a bird like this on your shoulder is not necessarily a good idea, but we trusted each other, and I accepted the risk and was never sorry for it. (Sometimes Spanky would nip me if my wife came near, but he definitely knew his limits in this). Very early on, Spanky learned that if he pooped on me when he was out of the cage, he went back in while I cleaned up the mess. On his own, he began to be very trustworthy about not making messes, and I really believe he figured out that it was to his advantage to hold it in order to extent his tim out of the cage. Many times when I returned him to his cage he would let loose immediately. He wasn't perfect, every bird has his limits, but he was nearly so. I never did anything to explicitly teach him this.

Some things Spanky did, I will never understand and they are mysterious and fascinating. When I took him into the kitchen where we had a big window with a view of the outside, he would often make a gentle "crowing sound" that I have always interpreted as deep satisfaction or contentment. When I took him down the hallway and opened the closet where my clothes were hanging, he would every time burst out in a short bit of excited chattering.

Spanky loved to have his cage by the window and look out into our backyard to see the big tree and sky and sometimes birds flying in and out of the tree. Behind our house is the yard of an elementary school, and when school was in session and it was recess and the children were screaming and yelling, Spanky would always join in and yell in imitation to the sounds they were making. We always enjoyed this and it seemed to be a natural thing for a parrot to do.

Spanky's vision was very sharp. I had him out in the yard (during times when his wings were clipped) and he was clearly disturbed and concerned about something overhead. I couldn't see anything at first, but then just at the limit of my own vision I could pick out a tiny speck, a silvery baloon someone had released that was floating up out of sight.

Spanky was a wonderful creature. We always felt a sense of privelege in having him with us, and to be able to share his life and experiences. I call him, "him" throughout all of this, but I never knew (and never will know) if Spanky was a male or a female. It doesn't really matter!