Skyler
Budgerigar
Acquired: Pet store
Gender: Male
Secretly very smart, but good starter bird
I liked Skyler, but many others in the house did not.
Skyler was messy. He would flick his birdseed out of the cage, so the floor was always covered with his birdseed.
Skyler was smart. Overtime, he learned to undo the sliding door on his cage, but he was wise enough never to actually do it when we were watching.
Skyler loved to sing to himself in the mirror. He would play with his knotted rope toy, and he would bite his cuttlebone.
We would let Skyler out of his cage a few times a month. He enjoyed flitting around the house, but he couldn't fly because we clipped his wings regularly.
He was loud, especially when he felt threatened or when there was a thunderstorm. In fact, one evening during a thunderstorm, my grandmother (who hated his loud yelling) put his cage on the porch. Skyler then opened the cage on his own and escaped, but he never left the yard. For months, he would sit on the roof taunting us.
Overall, Skyler was a good starter-bird for me. I think parakeets give you a good starting place if you want to get a more difficult bird one day.
