Corky's Accident

Something awful happened last night. My in-laws were all here. We had just finished dinner and were sitting around the table chatting. My sis in law got up to talk with Corky and she was just having a blast, so when she sat down, I decided to let Corky out of her cage so they could see how fun she was to hold etc. So, Corky was on top of the cage playing around and talking, playing peek a boo with Cathy. I got up to get Corky. Now, there is quite a psychology with handling parrots, especially African Greys who are much too smart for their own good. If the parrot is above you, the bird is superior, your boss, and you must bow down to it. If the bird is on the floor, he loves you, will kiss your toes and do your bidding. In the middle, depends on the bird's mood. But Corky's new cage is quite tall, so to get Corky off of it is very hard. I'm almost 6 feet tall, but I can't reach across the top of the cage because it's so tall and deep. So I basically wait until Corky's near an edge and sort of do a quick sweep of my arm across the top of the cage, making Corky step up and get her that way. If I go too slowly, she'll just decide to fight it out.

So, I do my thing and sweep the top of my arm and Corky steps up. But, being a fairly clumsy bird, she loses her balance, gets all in a tither and flutters down to the table. Normally, that's no biggy, but apparently she bumped her head on a glass coming down. When I reached for her, she was horribly disoriented and appeared to have a concussion or something. She was contorting her head backwards with her beak open and moving her head in ways I didn't think possible. It almost looked like her head was on backwards. I was a basketcase. Corky is as near human as any pet I've ever had and she was in such pain or distraught.

I picked her up and she kept doing this exorcist things. Oh, it was so scary. I held her close and kept petting her and reassuring her, but she was out of it. I really thought she was dying. She didn't seem to be able to breathe. I finally took her head ever so gently and while saying a little prayer for her, tried to stop her head from weaving and get it back into position. All of a sudden she just stopped, looked around, looked up at me and said, "Corky" and whistled like she always does when I pick her up. Then she seemed fine. I held her a long time to see if she was ok, and she appeared ok, but a touch wobbly. I put her back in her cage, once I felt she'd be able to stay on her perch without falling. She seems ok this morning. Wow, I don't ever want to go through that again.

You'd have to have an African Grey to understand all of this. They are very, very smart, on par with dolphins. They know what's going on and they really communicate with the family and love to make you laugh. Corky is 15. She should out live me, if she doesn't keep bonking her head on stuff.