Lady and the Tramp

I rarely blog (if ever--okay all the time--pretty much every third post) about our ever-expanding menagerie of animals. Yes, our terrier mix Fargo has an occasional (and in the case of yesterday--ferocious) accident in her crate. Our pug Lulu has constant demands for attention. And, it seems there is always a fish or two in some sort of crisis where we wonder if they are "okay."

This weekend, however, we realized that we had crossed a line and we may never be able to go back. On a dreary, rainy Saturday morning, Shlomo and I were up and out of the house at 8:00 a.m. to drive 30-something miles to a bird show. Rumor had it that there would be the ever-elusive female Red-Faced Parrot finch there. Now, you would think that someone who left at 8:00 on a Saturday would be first in line, right? Wrong. We were second.

Luckily, we were able to procure said rarity in the finch world. Our sweet little girl (named Merlot) was boxed up and we drove her home to join Pinot (her male counterpart) and the 12 other finches in our small aviary.

We have added new birds before. They fly out of the box, look around for a minute or two...and are part of the community. Not this time. Upon flying out of the box, Merlot was immediately spotted by Pinot. I think I can best describe his reaction as saying it was like he was just released from prison and discovered that Eva Longoria was his parole officer. He was on her like, well, stink on shit. Merlot, after thirty minutes no longer looked like the pretty little bird we had brought home. She was tattered and tired. In fact, I am pretty sure Jodie Foster could have based her performance in The Accused on their first few minutes together.

Now that a couple of days have passed, he seems to be leaving her alone. However, they are constantly at each other's side. Our only hope now is that the nesting process will begin. Keep in mind, we have no idea what we would do with baby birds, but it has already been established that we are nerds and will figure that out when the time comes.