The bird who fell upstairs

Doubtless many of you are wondering how Lihn, our Quaker parrot, is doing since her rehoming last week.

In a nutshell, this parrot fell upstairs.

Seriously, the family (Lara, her husband and children) who took her in are nothing short of bird whisperers. Lara has a lot of experience rehabilitating parrots, some of whom have been abused, and said often she starts by simply leaving the bird in its cage for the first few weeks to get it used to its new surroundings and to understand there is no threat.

So I fully expected Lihn to spend several weeks in her cage, huddled and terrified. Wrong.

The very first morning she arrived at Lara's, Lihn was sitting on top her cage, sassing people, before flying down to the kitchen table to try and snitch a bit of granola from Lara's son's breakfast plate. She sent a video, from which Younger Daughter took a screenshot.

Lihn was due for a beak trimming. Normally Lara would take care of this herself, but since it was Lihn's first day in her new home, Lara opted to bring Lihn to the vet to have it done (so any "anger" for this indignity would be on the vet, not Lara, so early in their acquaintance). Lihn actually takes beak trims without a problem, so that was fine. On the way back home, Lihn was loose in Lara's car, and her daughter was scratching Lihn's head. (All photos are cropped to edit out faces.)

Younger Daughter says this is one of her favorite photos so far, since a bird must really trust someone to allow its head to be scratched.

Lihn has also been hanging around Lara's shoulder a lot, getting affection. Again, this is remarkable. Anytime we allowed Lihn on our shoulder, she would try to chew our earlobes off. But with Lara? She's an angel.

And again:

Back on the kitchen table, looking interested in another kid's oatmeal.

So yes, Lihn fell upstairs and is now living with a remarkable family. Younger Daughter and I couldn't be happier about it.