Robyn Hoodie, the Virgin Diary: Chapter 11 - The Budgerigar That Wouldn't Budge
Created | Updated 5 Weeks Ago
Chapter 11 - The Budgerigar That Wouldn't Budge
To relieve my brains from the recent burdens of imminent War and Studies, I invited the Twins to go out and look at some natural phenomenae instead, in the form of the nearest Zoo. This very old Zoo was in the process of renewal, which meant that the entrance building was brand spanking new, but the animal enclosures were rundown and cramped, as always. The only advantage was that the entry fee was still within budget for a couple of students.
Our way to the Zoo was highly illegal, because the three of us cycled next to one another despite the legal maximum of two cycles. We compensated by cycling really close together, except when cornering.
In the Zoo, we were first drawn by the noises emanating from the panther enclosure. Three of the large cats were trying to sleep on an elevated platform big enough to accommodate only two. This led to a lot of growling, tail biting and nudging. This reminded me that I would have to ask for a bigger bed for my next birthday, in case our current relationship would take us that way.
The next cat-stop were the meerkats. In order to get into close contact with these cuties, the Zoo had made a transparent tunnel through the enclosure, apparently meant to be used by little kids, but we managed to squeeze through and get face to face with several meerkats. I blamed the meerkats for the smell in the tunnel despite my in-depth knowledge of the real source of the bio-emissions we encountered. It's not my fault that we ate onion soup and Mexican bean casserole last night.
In another cage, a single grey Japanese squirrel was trying to find enlightenment by meditating Buddha style on a pedestal. It got so accomplished that we weren't quite sure if it was still alive, but we Sayonara'd it anyway, just in case.
Comparative testing yielded the unanimous conclusion that baby goats are definitely softer than the adults (I decline to tell where the Twins are rated as the softness scale). The adults do seem to know this, so they get quite aggressive in their attempts to get their share of being scratched behind the ears. One of the goats' curly corkscrew horns had become so much intertwined that it could definitely move on to the unicorn section, given enough time. The pigs reminded me of Saturday mornings, when I usually have time to sleep in, except for the tusks that were quite prominent in their yawning. According to my dad, I used to aspire to a career as a firefighter-pig when I was about three years old. Well at least that would be a more tenable version compared to a firefighter-butterfly, for instance. (Less combustible, more insulation, smokey bacon in case of failure, just add lettuce and tomato.)
The main attraction of the day was unexpectedly small but insistent. In the cage with several types of colourful birds, we spotted a blue budgerigar that had decided that if humans could go and ride horses, there was no reason for a budgie to try and ride the much bigger yellow golden pheasant. I pointed out my find to the Twins and together we watched the spectacle. Despite its best efforts, the pheasant didn't manage to get rid of the small bird on its back. Contrary to what happens when a horse manages to throw off a human and trample said human into pulp, this small bird just flew up a bit to touch down on their target pheasant again within half a second.
After watching this for over fifteen minutes we got into a discussion on why the budgerigar would do this. As many things in nature, we concluded that it probably had something to do with a boy / girl mating thing. So we shouted encouragements like: 'Hold on tight, Bluey!', 'Dare to dream big!' and 'I'm not sure the two of you are compatible!'
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When pondering on how the animal kingdom would think about the human concept of consent, both Star and Portia opined that sitting on the neck of a girl was not a viable strategy for use in the portfolio of human courtship, in case I was getting any ideas. It would definitely end up with them sitting on top of me, nails out, if I tried. Maybe we should have skipped the cats.
When the small blue bird finally gave up, it went on to investigate the boundaries of personal space of several other fellow budgies, sitting right next to them on the same branch and then hopping closer until the other one nearly dropped off the end. Our final verdict was that it was just trying to be friends with everybody in the vicinity, and maybe trying a little bit too hard for comfort.
On that note, we decided to go home and get ice cream on the way.
