Sister Rain’s Note:
In July 2015 I began a series of posts about Piper, my now 17-year-old orange-fronted conure (a type of parrot) who adopted Mister Rain and me when he was 6. I don’t intend to republish previous content on this site but I think the story of Piper and me is worth retelling to all who are new to Sister Rain. During the next several Fridays I will repost the Love Story chapters I had written almost nine years ago. Rest assured, there is a lot more where these came from. There always is when you’re talking about the great loves of your life.
To read Piper & Me: A Love Story (Part 1-3), click here.
To read Piper & Me: A Love Story (Part 4-5), click here.
To read Piper & Me: A Love Story (Part 6), click here.
PART 7
Originally Published August 21, 2015
Returning to A Helping Wing Parrot Rescue & Sanctuary the following weekend, on August 18th, 2012, my husband and I spent a lot of time thinking individually, then discussing with each other, the three conures we had met the week before. Piper, Tewie and Gomez were all beautiful birds but ran the personality gamut. Tewie wanted nothing more than to have his head and neck rubbed constantly. I caught a tear in Mister Rain’s eye on the first visit to the rescue, as he watched me rub Tewie. I had done this with our first bird, Cato, when he was still wth us. Gomez was a character, he would sing and speak a few phrases over and over. Piper, the orange-fronted conure I had discovered on petfinder.com, bringing us to the rescue, was a bit standoffish. All were nippy at times which was to be expected. They were living in a rescue with 200 other birds, after coming from families or pet stores or God knows where.
During our talks throughout the week, I told my husband that I was disappointed in Piper’s unfriendliness, although he did “step up”, allowing us to pick him up. Our tentativeness, due to having been victims of his beak, was rewarded with several bites. I certainly wanted the right bird for us as well as to be the best family for one of them, but I did feel an allegiance to the bird that lead us here. When I told Mister Rain of my disappointment that Piper didn’t seem all that into us, he told me that when Piper was on the play stand, having refused our offers to be picked up, he was watching our every move as we interacted with the other birds. It both broke my heart and made it soar. I was not giving up on Piper.
We knew that conures can live over 30 years, all three birds were around the same age, five or six years old. After much deliberation, we decided Gomez wasn’t quite what we were looking for. Eliminating him from the running made me sad. I wanted to save them all. My husband didn’t have a doubt that Gomez would find a good home.
Upon arriving at the rescue on the 18th, we told the owner that we had narrowed it down to Tewie and Piper. We spent the afternoon getting to know both of them better, asking questions about their histories and habits. We rubbed Tewie until our fingers cramped and let Piper climb all over us. We got nipped again, a lot, but we weren’t deterred. We understood these birds were defensive because whatever had brought them to the rescue had to be traumatic, including being surrendered by their family.
We left after several hours, with so much to think about. We were both quiet during the two-hour drive home, then finally asked each other which conure we thought we should adopt, which bird we would be best for. It was very important to us that we be the right choice for the bird too.
The next few days were spent ruminating, there were a lot of factors to consider, including the way the birds had connected with us, how long they had been at the rescue, what we were looking for personality-wise, what the rescue owner thought about each bird. I was, at times, so worried about the bird we wouldn’t choose that it clouded my decision-making process.
Finally, after much soul-searching by both of us, we knew in our hearts which bird had picked us. I called the rescue and told her, that if he would have us, and if she gave her blessing, we wanted to be one of the conure’s forever family.
And through this wonderful woman, he said yes.
To be continued . . .
#sisterrain #birdmom #adoptdontshop #parrotsofinstagram #conure #ahelpingwingparrotrescue #piperandmealovestory
