Scary Harry
I had been bitten by the bird bug since my daughter and I joined the RMSA. She
had been saving up for an African Grey and finally was able to bring him home.
The more I became attached to her grey, Churchill, the more I realized I had to
have a bird of my own. I visited many pet stores and asked many breeders about a
bird but it was not until I happened to walk into one while on another errand,
that I found my bird. I was fascinated by this Mealy Amazon=s red eyes and could
sense he was trying to cover up his insecurity by his aggressive nature. The
manager handled him quite well, but Harry was not exactly friendly toward me.
However, I saw a gentle spirit hiding in there. The manager told me Harry was 3
years old and had belonged to a woman who was moving out of state and Harry was
there on consignment. Unfortunately for Harry, he had been in the pet store for
about 3 months and the strain was beginning to show in his personality. He was
getting short tempered with the customers and intimidated them. But I was not
easily intimidated and able to get a great buy with weekly payments. I was able
to take him home right away, because the manager thought Harry needed to be in a
stable environment as soon as possible. When I got Harry home, he began to live
up to his nick name, Scarry Harry. He bit my 16 year old son more than once so I
decided to give him some space and time to adjust. I made sure to be there for
him and spoke to him frequently in a quiet tone, but I also let him decide when
he was ready to accept my hand or finger to step up on. The patience finally
paid off. Within about three months he allowed me to pet him on the beak and
stepped up for me regularly. Also, having Churchill around helped considerably,
because Churchill was very friendly and loved to be touched. Harry began to
notice that Churchill received a lot more attention by allowing more physical
contact.
But within a short period of time I began to notice Harry=s beak was slightly
crooked and he was having problems, so I called a local bird grooming company
(Bird Calls) that made house calls. When the owner of the business showed up he
recognized Harry right away from former grooming sessions and began to tell me a
little more about his history, while he took care of the beak problem. It turned
out, Harry was not 3 years old but 13 years old and had been originally owned
for a long time by a couple where Harry had bonded with the husband. Because the
wife had been jealous of their relationship, she kept him in a corner with
little stimulation for years, while her husband travelled all over the world for
his job. Finally, she sold him to another couple who eventually broke up. The
woman got Harry, but her new boyfriend was not fond of him and chased him around
the house with a towel. Poor Harry hid under the bed until the woman came home
from work. So Harry seems to have had a tough history and even to this day likes
to intimidate people and lives up to his name of Scarry Harry. Despite Harry=s
problems, we have bonded successfully and each day brings new surprises. Though
I work full time, I still spend as much time with him as I can. I come home at
lunch time and we have a special lunch together. He can even sense when I am
tired and keeps quiet if I fall asleep on the couch. When I wake up I see him
starring at me patiently. He seems to be content just to be in the same room
with me.
I trim my pine trees in the back yard to allow some long isolated branches near
the bottom which allow Harry and his buddy AChurchill@ to perch in the fresh air
when it is nice while I supervise. They really look forward to this time outside
and become excited when I tell them we are going outside. In fact, during one of
these outings, I had a bird on each hand and was unable to open the heavy patio
door, so I asked my son to open the door for us. The birds looked at him like
they knew what I was asking, and after my son opened the door, Harry looked
right at him and told him AGood Boy@! My son seemed surprised and said no one
had called him a good boy since he was little. But what surprised me the most
was that even though Harry has a very limited vocabulary, he not only knew what
the word meant, but knew how to apply it under the right circumstance. I believe
that required some reasoning ability and a fair amount of intelligence.
I understand his last owner used to fight with her boyfriend a lot so whenever
my son and I raise our voices at each other (like teenagers and parents are
known to do) Harry yells out AQUIET@. At first we thought someone else was
trying to tell us to be quiet, but when we realized it was Harry, we’d laugh,
and Harry would laugh along with us. Even the groomer who still makes regular
grooming visits to our house is glad that Scarry Harry finally found a home
where he fits in and is loved. And of course our cat, AStormin= Norman@, seems
to have accepted him, as well. After I introduced them, I let them check each
other out, and Norman brought Harry a dead mouse the next morning, leaving it in
front of the cage for him. Coming from a cat that is quite a complement! Now we
are considering changing Harry=s nickname from AScarry Harry@ to AHappy Harry@.
Written in 1996 by Gabriele Alexander
Since writing this article, she has taken in three other rescue birds: a red
lored amazon, and two from the adoption program at RMSA, a yellow napped amazon
and blue and gold macaw. To round out the flock she has also acquired three
other macaws which she purchased from The Bird Endowment (two scarlet brothers
and a blue throat), a non-profit involved in conservation breeding for the
future. She has also been on the board of two local bird organization, including
RMSA and has completed her Masters Degree in Non-Profit. And to think it all
started with that one mealy amazon named ‘Scarry Harry’!
