I am not.
I am frankly terrified of handling all birds.
I am afraid I am going to kill the little ones. Hold them incorrectly and break a neck, squash a head, break a tiny leg. And those little beaks, those tiny little beaks...they HURT.
One of the Veterinarians, Dr.Frank Wilder, was a Bird Person. He had a Scarlet Macaw named Dodie.
Dodie was big.
Dodie was smart, she was beautiful, and she was cranky. She adored Frank and no one else. Frank clipped her wings and then would set her in the oak trees outside.
Every now and then Dodie would get bored and get down from the tree and take off. She couldn't fly, but she could hike.
If you have never seen a huge red bird stomping down the middle of a 4 lane highway you have missed a real sight. Traffic would pile up behind her, thank God.
Eventually someone would rush in, breathless, and say
"There's a huge red bird walking down the middle of Western Avenue!!!"
(Photo from Google Images)
Now, Frank was our surgeon, so as often as not he was gloved in when word came that Dodie had made a break for it. As senior kennel person, senior Tech, etc etc., and also as the one person who, as afraid as I was of Dodie, had reached a kind of grudging truce with her, I was usually summoned to go get the Bird out of Harm's Way.
Armed with a broomstick, I would follow the honking and stopped traffic down the highway until I came to Dodie, stumping along on her ineffective legs, waddling toward--the bar? (There was a bar down there.....)
And I would say
"Get on the stick, Dodie: let's go home."
And 9 times out of 10, she would. But. Now came the tricky part: keeping space between Dodie's very formidable beak and my hands.
(Photo borrowed from Google images)
This is the skull of a Scarlet Macaw like Dodie. Please note the outstanding feature of this, aside from the large eyes, is the very large, strong, and pointy beak. These are birds that crack nuts to eat in the Jungle. Dodie would have thought nothing of cracking my thumb and was ornery enough to do it. Maybe. I never let her get close enough.
Dodie also had a perverse sense of humor, something I came to learn many of the big, strong birds share. It may well be that, well aware of my fear, she took full advantage of it just for fun.
Once on the broomstick, the dance began. As I walked back to the clinic, Dodie would inch down the broomstick toward my sweaty hand. When she was about 2/3rds of the way down, toward my hand, I would switch ends.
Now she went the other way, headed once again for my hands. And I would switch. She was a real character. She had Presence.
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One time Doc and I made a housecall for an ailing Cockatoo. Not the little Cockatiels, oh no. This was a huge, white, Sulfur-Crested Cockatoo. The kind "Beretta" had in the TV series if you are 100 years old and remember Robert Blake before he was accused of shooting his wife.
Monty was beautiful. I do not remember why we were there but the Maid was there and she hated Monty because when he was loose he would run along the floor and bite her ankles. Nipped. A real bite would have hamstrung her.
So I got the towel out in which to hold Monty and following Doc's directions to the letter managed to get Monty out of his huge cage. He, of course, made a lunge for my hand and I, of course, let go.
(Photo from Google images)
The Maid, the only smart one of us, ran screaming from the room. Holding the towel (And noting it's total inadequacy as a barrier between that beak and my hand) I chased Monty around the room. Monty then chased me. Doc chased Monty. Monty chased Doc. You get the idea.
Eventually, Doc cornered him and working pretty much on his own got the injection into Monty who seemed pretty damn healthy to me.
******
Thus endeth my personal experience with large birds. After that, I politely bowed out when the Big Birds came in.
I have always kind of wanted an African Grey Parrot, however. Too late: it would outlive me by many years.
(Photo borrowed from Google Images)
