Early this morning, The Hub’s client for whom he was supposed to work today cancelled, so he went up with me to Pennsylvania to get the new bird. While I’m sorry that he lost the work, I was really glad that he was able to come with me.

We got to Petco right after they opened. There was a little girl, obviously a frequent visitor to Button’s cage, standing there, scratching his head. Then she ran back to her father, who said something affirmative to her.

“You’d better tell somebody you want that bird.” The Hub said, darkly.

“I’m not going to get in a fight with a little girl over a parrot” I said, as if the bird meant nothing to me, though my heart seemed to have fallen to my feet.

“I’m not saying you should get in a fight.” The Hub said, diplomatically, “I’m just saying you should stake your claim.”

I went to the register and there was the young lady who had first let us interact with the Senegal. We told her we’d come to take it home.

“Oh, I’m so glad! Go ahead back to the bird room, I’ll go get the manager and meet you there.”

The little girl could tell that I was there to buy the bird, but I didn’t say anything to her. What could I say? Moreover, if her father intended to buy it for her, I would have certainly given way, but I didn’t get that impression. I felt that it was more like a fantasy for the little girl. I’m sure she had asked for the bird before. This impression was reinforced by the Dad, a square shouldered man, shorter than me, wearing a UAW tee shirt and a perpetually defiant look.

“This is the best bird here.” He said with great authority, “He loves keys! Look.” He took his car key and tapped it on the bars of the bird’s cage…and sure enough, the bird came over to see what was making the noise. “I did a lot of research on them. Did you know that they can live to be a hundred years old?”

He had such a funny look on his face, as if he dared me to disagree. Some people are just like that. “I didn’t know that.” I answered. Because it isn’t true I added mentally. Senegals do live a long time – hopefully this bird will live to be 30. Maybe he just mis-spoke, but I had the weirdest feeling he was trying to start an argument.

Then he chuckled, “Yeah, and this one’s just a baby. Imagine that.”

I wanted to say to the little girl that the bird would have a good home. I wanted to say that we were nice people. But what do those words even mean to a little girl? Everybody thinks they’re nice. Everybody thinks their home is good.

“I’ll just get a carrier for it” the manager said. The little girl looked over her shoulder as she was leaving. The small animal specialist took out a key. The Senegal headed for the lock on its cage and began to tug at it – not the latch - the lock that the key went into.

What we have here is a smart bird.

“This one is everybody’s favorite.” The small animal specialist said. For some reason, the manager took the key out of her hand, flicked the lock open, and flung cage door open wide, reaching in, quick as a blink.

Not surprisingly, the bird beaked her. He didn’t bite her. He just tried to tell her to back off. “Buttons! Don’t bite!” she tapped the now retreating bird on the beak. “Well, for some reason he doesn’t like me!”

I’m not sure I blame him, I thought. After all, if somebody came into my house, flinging wide my door and slamming it and came right up to me with a demand “Step Up!” I’m not sure I’d like them either.

Even after she tapped him like that, he did get up onto her hand. You can bet an older bird wouldn’t have done that. Still, it speaks to the Senegal’s good temperament. She handed him right to me.

“Hello” I said.

The bird looked at me curiously. Then I realized that the poor small animal specialist was crying, “Oh, it’s been awhile since I cried over a bird! Can I hold him one last time?”

“Of course.” I handed the bird to her and it climbed up onto her shoulder. “I’m so glad to see he’s had such good care. He’s obviously healthy and really well socialized.”

“Don’t worry, my wife has read two whole books on parrot care, and all kinds of articles. We have the new cage all set up. All kinds of toys. He’s going to have a wonderful life.” The Hub spoke up for me.

The young lady took a deep breath, and gave us last minute instructions – all of which were sound, and all of which were things I planned to do anyway. There was the sound of little talons scratching around the bottom of the carrier, we picked up a bag of food, through the register and we were off!

As soon as we got in the car, I opened the carrier and took the bird out. He hopped up on the edge, then onto my wrist and up onto my shoulder. I figured I’d let him sit there for the car ride, since he was probably at least a little scared. At times he kind of “vibrated” which birds do when they are nervous, but at least half of the time he was at least as curious as he was scared. He stretched his neck out and looked around, particularly at the traffic lights.

There was no question of keeping the name “Buttons”. Those eyes are full of life and intelligence. On the way home, we settled on “Kendi”

Winston, of course, greeted us at the door and looked up curiously at the new bird. The pair-a-tweeters spotted him instantly and started an alarm call.

“Winston! Winston! Calm down!” but he wasn’t acting crazy. The little talons dug into my sweater a little deeper, but Kendi stretched his neck out curiously. I drew nearer to the parakeet cage with the bird on my shoulder: clearly they were afraid that he was coming in there. I introduced everybody, just briefly, then took Kendi over to his own cage.

He hopped in, settled on the perch and looked around. He looked in front of him and behind him and up above. Then he climbed up the side of the cage, hung upside down and took in the view that way.

I feel such kinship with this bird!

Winston came over to sniff at the bird at cage again. I guess because Winston had to stretch his neck to reach over to sniff, the bird might have recognized his behavior as curiosity. Kendi stretched down from his top most perch to allow his beak to be sniffed through the bars and this seemed to satisfy Winston.

So. There we are. Kendi is in the adjustment period, though I’m glad to see that he so far doesn’t seem to be too fearful, the pair-a-tweeters have something new to squawk about, Winston will have someone new to spend time with – hopefully he and the bird will entertain each other. And The Hub and I have a new flock mate with hopefully many adventures to come.