Last night the K-Bird was in a bad mood. And let me tell you, when the parrot ain't happy, nobody's happy. She squeaked and squawked to be let out of her cage and when I got her out she was nippy and irritable. She didn't want her swing, didn't want to perch on the back of the chair, threw her nutra-berry at the dog, did several flying leaps onto the floor and one into my arms. I tried to pet her, and she bit me. I put her back in the cage and she went from toy to toy shaking them all in a desultory fashion before going back down to her seed cup and throwing everything out of it. She didn't even want to play Peek-a-Bird. She was in a Really Bad Mood.

I thought I knew what the problem was....

But she was in such a lousy mood that I began to wonder if she was ill. She also spent a lot of time on the bottom of her cage, just pacing back and forth, which can be a sign of illness in parrots. She had been aggressively grooming her wing feathers for a couple of days. I thought she was about to molt a flight feather and was having trouble getting it out. But she was in a worse mood than she was when she went through her "hard molt" in December, and I was starting to get scared.

Great, I thought, me and the parrot can be sick at the same time. I wonder if I could get the vet to take care of me. You know why vets are such good doctors? They don't have to deal with health insurance and can just recommend whatever is best for their patients.

This morning, when she got up, she wouldn't perch on her usual spot. She ran up my arm to the height of my shoulder and literally flung herself to the floor from there! I thought she was trying to commit birdiecide!! And, lo and behold, not one but two flight feathers came out.

I picked her up and picked them up to have a look. She gave me a look of extreme relief, perched on the chair and chomped on a nutra-berry before conning The Hub out of part of his bagel.

On closer look at the feathers she molted I feel I can totally understand how bad she must have felt. The barbs - the part of the feather that's under the skin- on both of the molted feathers were an inch long. I measured them. When you consider that the entire parrot from beak to tail is only 10 inches long her molting out these feathers must be a huge job for her little bird body. Imagine something an inch long working it's way out of your skin, but it being someplace like your back where you couldn't reach it to pull it out! Ugh! Poor K-Bird!

Anyway, we have now returned to our regularly scheduled Kendi, perching on her swing, doing the sneezing noise and noshing on peanuts out of the dish beside her perch. Glad she's back to her normal self.

I wonder if I could be molting?