Moonbase One Comes Home

By Northlight Hermary

As I write this, My conure, Moonbase One (aka Moonie) is sitting on my shoulder. We've just come back from the Parrot Club of Manitoba meeting and the radio is on a classical station. I'm thinking back about the days before I had Moonbase and I don't remember what they're like. All I can think of are the messes (both handfeeding and everyday messes), the noise, poop on the keyboard (it's not that bad..REALLY!), and most of all, snuggling with my conure buddy.

I remember the day I made my second last payment on Moonie. The hand feeder let me hold this little guy. Moonie was so calm. He just sat in my hands, quiet and still as a green pillow. I crooned and cuddled with him for a good half hour, telling him how much I wanted to bring him home and if he learned to speak, it would be in cockatielese. I was excited to hold him, as it was the first time I had ever held a conure. It felt it was a special moment and I treated it as so.

He came home with me two weeks later. It was a cold Winter day and the wife of the store owner fussed over him to insure Moonie had a nice warm trip home. I was allowed to bring him home, despite Moonie still being on three hand feedings a day, because I had experience hand feeding a cockatiel. They said to contact them if any questions or problems arose. Luckily, what questions I did have were answered by doing some research on the web. As helpful as the store owners were, they were not that descriptive in the care Moonie needed, even when I asked detailed questions.

Any ways, back to the story. Off Moonie and I went, taking the bus on a cold blustery day. It was close to minus 20 degrees Celsius that day, so I tucked the box Moonie was in into my jacket. It was an amusing ride home, as people kept wondering where the chirps were coming from. Despite the occasional noise from Moonie, the trip went quietly.

Moonie went into quarantine immediately, and came out two weeks later due to my impatience. It was a risky move, but luckily nothing has happened to everyone in my flock. Moonie was introduced slowly to the other birds and he got along superbly with them. Recently he's been trying to flirt with my one hand fed cockatiel, who, amusingly, refuses to have anything to do with him.

Things have worked out well so far. I still have to get Moonie DNA sexed, as I don't know if he is a she. I simply defaulted to calling him a he because it was what rolled off the tongue first. He's also babbling. He hasn't actually spoken yet, but you can hear his attempts at making speech and garbled cockatiel noises. They're not...err...logical noises, just mumbling that are so suspiciously familiar that they're probably what I suspect they are. I suspect if Moonie does talk, it won't be until he's six to nine months old.

My only real complaint about him is that he's not as cuddly as people say their conures are. If anything, Moonie HATES being touched! However, he will snuggle up against my neck for hours on end. So far our record is six hours! In comparison my cockatiels are so flighty and high strung, flipping out at the drop of a hat. I knew there were differences between cockatiels and conures, but it's fun seeing them for myself.

I'm looking forward to seeing Moonie grow up. He¹s only 4 months old right now and I hope to hear him make his first mimic, whether it is a cockatiel screech or a word. Wish us luck...it's going to be an interesting ride!