Bittersweet

One of my nieces called last night, she's gonna come visit, (I think it's interesting that my two sisters and myself all had baby girls in the same year)
and during the course of our conversation she asked about Tinga.

Tinga bird, as she is affectionately called, is our sun conure. Sun conures, are originally from Central America and their plummage is very vivid, from bright yellow on the top of the head to yellow-orange on the back and belly and olive green and blue on the wings. They aren't very big, maybe 6 or 7 inches tall. Conures also have a beak like a Macaw, very sharp, for peeling the skin off of grapes and other skin, human included. My friend Alice did a watercolor of Tinga last year, because of the beautiful colors, and I save her feathers in a box and use them from time to time in my art projects.  I might add that some family members think Tinga is pretty, pretty mean. She has drawn blood from every one in the family, and a huge number of friends. Not that she's vicious, just temperamental.

Anyway, we've had Tinga since she was a baby, born in captivity in 1991, and my husband has trained Tinga to fly to him. When we lived on the ranch he used to let her fly free on the property. She would fly into the barn and find him and sit on his head or shoulder. When we moved here to Rockledge, my husband continued to let Tinga fly free whenever he went outside.

Last December, we were walking around the house, as my hubby had recently had hip-replacement surgery and needed to walk for his therapy, and Tinga was with him, right there on his shoulder.  Tinga decided to fly up to a low hanging branch in the Magnolia tree we have out front. Little did we know that a red-tailed hawk was sitting on a branch just above her. Tinga wasn't on her branch for more than 30 seconds when that hawk swooped down and grabbed her! and started flying away with her. Not straight up in the sky, but down the street.

I let out a blood-curdling scream. I don't know about you all, but a scream like that comes right up out of the bowels, and immediately activates the adrenaline system, and we started running down the street, after the two birds.  I mean, what were we thinking? We could out run a bird? I don't think so, Opal. The sight of that hawk with our beloved birdie in it's claws flying away was the source of a few nightmares for me.

However, run we did, and to our utter amazement the hawk dropped Tinga right in front of our neighbors house, and kept on flying. Now here is where Tinga's mean temperament really worked to her advantage, she bit the hawk! I will never know exactly where she bit it, but I do know she bit it hard enough for it to let her loose. Tinga didn't hit the ground, she just bounced up and flew into the tree of our next door neighbor.

Unbelievable, ecstatic and overwhelmed with joy, I turned around to high-five my hubby, only to find him splatted on the pavement. As it turns out, when he began to run, hobble is more like it, his first step off the curb wasn't balanced, and he fell onto the asphalt. He tried to break his fall with his right hand, and in doing so broke his arm. The asphalt left some skid marks on his knees and shoulders too.

After retrieving Tinga from the neighbors tree, which took quite alot of time as I think she was in shock, I know we were, we got her down and took her back to her aviary on our back porch. 

Where she has been ever since. She doesn't want to go outside with my hubby anymore, and we are glad she doesn't.  My hubby sits down with her every evening and preens her before she gets her dinner, and that's how Tinga bird is.