Poor Biggles has been forced into an early retirement with us. He has been with us about 30 years, and he is quite a grumpy, vicious, destructive bird - at times the odd foul word can be heard too - but it was for those very reasons we decided to bring him to Spain too. African Greys can live a long time, and as he was an imported bird from Angola, not hand reared, we feared a new home would not understand him as we do, as people seem to like creatures they can cuddle and stroke and make baby noises to, (that's us too actually, but I digress), however forget cuddles where Biggles is concerned.
One has to understand his life has changed over the years - where he once shared a home with dogs and crazy cats, noisy aviaries in the garden too - he was well entertained - the home on weekends contained teenagers, and during the week he spent summer days on a patio that was overlooked by a high school, specifically the rugby field, and so loud voices, and whistles were part of his life. Not forgetting his attempts at screaming 'Amandla' in the giddy days of the Mandela release from incarceration.
When we holidayed in Cape Town he came with us on the 1000 mile road journey, enjoying a breakfast snack at Bloemfontein Wimpey, a little more at Three Sisters in the Karoo. We didn't often break the journey at a motel, preferring to travel through in a day, either way he was happy in his smaller cage whatever we did, until we reached our spot in CT where a larger cage was awaiting his presence, and he could then pretend to be a sea gull and echo their cries. Not forgetting his disapproval of any garage attendant when we stopped for fuel - he could be quite vocal and objectionable.
We eventually moved to CT permanently and after a time took on 2 Dachshunds, by then we had only 1 cat, my beloved Keno, a Seal Point Siamese - and still today Biggles will sometimes echo my call for Keno, even though that beloved pet is no more - being 16 when his life came to an end.
Now we are just 3, for a short time we were 4 here when we took on my grand daughter's budgie - suddenly Biggles started telling that bird to 'be quiet' - no idea where he picked that up! But as you all probably know, budgies are very chattery.
Summer days now are spent on our terrace, and in the evenings his cage is wheeled to the terrace wall and he can observe and call to the Spanish children who kick a ball around every evening in the street below. Sometimes someone from another building will whistle and that will set him off, and he occasionally mimics various dogs that can be heard in the neighbourhood. Other than that he has visits from the local sparrows always looking for anything he may have chucked out of his cage.
When indoors he is often allowed to climb out and stretch his wings, but we have to make sure he is well away from reaching any walls, which he has already tested and tasted! He normally pretends he is a 'Poor Boy' and will repeat that until the door is opened for him. He does get his head scratched but one has to keep an eye on him all the time, bites are painful.
In mentioning my adored Keno, I have in recent times taken an interest in Instagram, and there is a lady in Australia who has 2 Chocolate Point Siamese - they are the absolute mirror image of Keno and I enjoy looking out for them (Benny and Leroy) and remembering the wonderful and dear moments I shared with him.
Of course Biggles has a little Spanish, Hola being the local greeting, and he learnt that long before we came to Spain. We tried him with a little German too, Guten Tag, it took ages, and when my son returned from Austria on a visit we were rather deflated to be told they don't say that in Austria - Grus Gott is the greeting - by then it was never going to happen after all the Guten Tag stuff we had been reciting for months on end! Oh well! You can't win every time.
