It never rains but it pours....

Well after yesterday's sadness with Toby, I opened up my bird shed this morning and found my old budgie Misty laying dead on the floor. I was upset of course, but it was not unexpected. She was over 12 years old, a very good age for a hen living outdoors. She was very arthritic but had been flying around and feeding, and had a "toy boy" as a boyfriend - a young male to look after her. I guess the poor girl had a heart attack in the night. She was from the second clutch of babies from my very first pair of budgies that Barry bought me in 1995. She was born in June, so had just turned 12.

I'll never forget what a lucky escape she and three other baby budgies had when they were only about 5 weeks old. I had taken them out of the aviary into a cage in the shed as I had a problem with sickness and birds dying. They had all been wormed and treated with antibiotics. It was a hot summers day, and I had left the shed door open and we had gone off to work for the day, leaving our two dogs out in the garden, and they could go into a different shed for their beds etc. When we came come, I found three of the budgies, including her, outside on the gravel path in front of the aviary. I had left the cage door open! Anything could have got them, dogs, cats, other birds, because they couldn't fly! It was so cute really though because they were sitting by the aviary wanting to go in with the other birds. One of them was still sitting good as gold in the cage though, lol.

I buried her and Toby tonight snuggled together in my bird graveyard in the border in the front garden.
When she was a baby, only a few weeks old