It all began with Muffin.

Muffin was (and possibly still is) a sweet tempered Blue Fronted Amazon parrot.  I have carefully sifted through all of my memories of her and can’t bring up a single one of her biting me.  Never fear, however.  I have been bitten enough times in subsequent years to make up for her denying me that privilege.

Muffin belonged to my high school best friend.  Well, she was technically a family bird, but her two favortist people in the entire world were my friend and her Dad.  My first memory of Muffin was at my friend’s parent’s house.  Muffin’s cage was downstairs.  I was sitting upstairs with a friend of the family.  Muffin was doing what parrots do.  Making a lot of noise.  I looked over at the friend and asked if the noise ever bothered her.  She asked me, “what noise”?  Yep.  Tuning out is a necessary skill if one is to own a parrot.

I thought that Muffin was a cool pet, but I don’t remember doing much in the way of making friends with her … until my friend went out of town and asked if I would take care of Muffin.  I agreed to do it.

These days they make parrot cages with bowls that you can access from the outside.  This is so that you don’t ever have to stick your hands into the cage of the Hyacinth Macaw (they are huge) you have been coerced into babysitting, who are quite territorial and could easily deprive you of a digit or two.  I can’t remember if Muffin’s cage had those kinds of bowls or not, but one way or the other, she got out.  Now, as I said before, she wasn’t a biter.  But I couldn’t leave her out of her cage either, so I still had a problem.  I called my friend.  She gave me some advice and lo and behold, Muffin stepped right onto my hand.  I don’t know if trumpets sounded in heaven or not, but an angel or two must’ve rejoiced.  I was still utterly ignorant of the vast sparkling treasures of my love for birds, but that was the moment when the first gleam shone through.

For the rest of the week Muffin and I worked on becoming friends.  I let her out of her cage on purpose, instead of by accident.  I talked to her while I was there.  I bribed her with food.  We all know that food is the way to any animal’s heart – so long as it doesn’t involve any of your own body parts.  Muffin was a junk food junkie.  She loved Doritos.  Parrots have about three taste buds, so they usually like strong flavored things.  She also had a soft spot for Cheez-its, as I did I, so we immediately connected around carbs and chemical preservatives, the bond of any true friendship.  Every vet and parrot fanatic would strangle us for some of the things we fed her back then.

By the time my friend returned, Muffin had another “favortist” person added to her list.

There is a special balance of emotions and attitude when working with parrots.  They are prey animals, and technically, humans are predators.  Parrots are NOT domesticated.  They are tame.  Now, a parrot that is born and bred in captivity (as is the only legal option!) will not know another world.  But they still have their instincts.  So, you need to have a gentle confidence.  Too much and it is aggressive, too little, and they can’t trust you.  Much of that can be learned, and should be, if someone wants to work with birds.  But I think there are some people who intuitively know how to communicate that they are that kind of person.  I was discovering that I was one of those kinds of people.

It just so happened that I also worked for my friend’s parents, and for several years, Muffin lived at the office.  It was a great arrangement for her because she got to be around people all day.  I held her a lot.  One of her favorite places was to sit under the table on your thigh, near the knee, while you were working at your desk.  So, I would sit for an hour or two at a time, working away, while she preened or slept contentedly on my leg.  Occasionally, I would look down and she would be peering up at me, and then immediately put her head down on my leg, with her neck all fluffy.  This meant:  SCRATCH ME.  And one must obey, of course.

I was learning the world of parrots.  My friend’s parents had raised a variety of birds over the years, and she knew a lot about them.  I was beginning to develop a respect and sense of awe over how smart they were, and how they could associate words with behavior.  The memory that stands out to me as the “knock me over with a feather” moment (ha!) was one day at work.  Muffin was rummaging around on my desk, probably chewing on something she wasn’t supposed to be.  I wasn’t feeling well.  I put my head down on my arms and just sat there.

Within a few seconds, I felt two parrot feet on my arm and a head poke through the space between my head and my elbow.  A little voice said in my ear, “whatcha do?”

That was Muffin’s version of “whatcha doing”, or “how are you doing”.  I put my head up and just looked at her.  It makes me teary just thinking of it now.  I will swear to my dying day that she knew I was behaving oddly, that something wasn’t ok, and she wanted to know what was wrong.

I was still nowhere near recognizing my growing love of parrots as a God-given piece of design that would expand far into the avian world.  The only other existing bird love I had was a long-time, unexplainable fascination with penguins.  My connection with Sapphire Leadership Group was still many years down the road.  But the journey had begun. I was dreaming of the day when I would have a parrot of my own.