In 1991, when I bought my first house, I decided I wanted a new type of pet. I've always had a lot of pets over the years, but I wanted something a bit more exotic. I went to a pet store in Cyprus that had some really neat birds. In fact it only sold birds. As I was looking at all these baby birds on their perches, I heard the theme song from the Andy Griffith show on the radio. I thought that was strange because you don't usually hear it on the radio. A bit later I heard it again. But this time I realized it was coming from this parrot near the cash register.
I started talking to the salesperson about that bird. It was an African Grey parrot. As I talked, I learned it was the best of all the talkers and considered the most intelligent of all birds and was up there with elephants, dogs, monkeys and dolphins in intelligence. I decided this was the bird for me. So I bought a baby, named it Corky, and the rest is history.
Corky has delighted my friends and family over the years. She can say so many things. She mimics all of us in the house and she even rings herself on the phone, has a complete conversation and hangs up the phone! She calls the dogs, tells Zack to clean his room and says she loves me. ahhh.
Anyway, it's been some 15 years or so that I bought Corky. She's been a great pal. She's never been sick a day in her life and she has brought me a great deal of joy. Her cage was getting pretty ratty and we decided that it was time to splurge on a new and bigger one. I went back to where I bought her and Zack and I managed to get a new, bigger cage into the van. (It wasn't easy)
So, we bring it home and fix it all up with Corky's old toys and she outright hates the thing. She doesn't want to go in it. When she's in it she shivers like she's deadly ill. A friend on Maclectic found me a blog article about the same thing happening to another African Grey. They don't like change, it seems. It took a few days, but she's calmed down a bit now. Here are some picture of her new cage and Corky herself.
