We lost a little bird today.  Cornelius, the rescue budgerigar from the surgery, flew through the wide open space of a blown in screen and has been lost forever.  I am devastated.  Tomorrow would've marked his fourth anniversary with us.  He came int the surgery having been found on the side of the road with a broken wing.  He was a very young bird.  MCC taped the wing and I took him home.  The girl who brought him in wanted to adopt him but had sent her mother who obviously was not in favour of a new family member.  She had no cage, only a cardboard box, no food, no dishes, no nothing. I forgot what I told her but dissuaded her from taking him.   Oh, I remember now.  I didn't lie.  Cornelius had coccidiosis.  He was in shock and weak and ill.  If he'd gone home with them I very much doubt he would've survived.  And that's what I told them, albeit in a more diplomatic way.

But what difference does it make when a cyclone called Oswald lumbers down the east coast bringing tornadoes, wind gusts of well over 100kph and metres of rain.  One of those gusts broke the stays holding one of the screened panels on the verandah.  We were in the living room, heard this loud bang and crash and leapt up to investigate.  But it was far too late.  Cornelius had already gone. Happily Tachimedes, the cockatiel, and Tony, the other budgie were still there.  Dimitir, because she cannot fly was never in any danger of escaping.  But Corny wasn't so lucky.  I don't think it was a burst for freedom. I think it was flight borne of fear.  That gust was like a mini-tornado.  It beat against the house with huge amorphous grey fists.  We had no warning.  The wind had been gusting all day.  The rain had fallen all day.  How were we to know this gust had iron in it? 

I keep seeing Cornie's dark intelligent eye.  He wasn't hand tame.  He wasn't a cuddly bird.   But he knew who he was and where he was.  He knew me and he thought deep bird thoughts.  His little yellow head was not a container of 'birdbrains', easily discounted, easily forgotten.  He was a birdperson, small and, in the ways of the world, insignificant but I knew him and insignificant he was not. 

It has been an awful day.  We searched for him, this bright spot of yellow in a dark grey and green world, but he was not to be seen.  He is either already dead, which is what I wish for him after the fantasy daydream of him landing on my shoulder and staying there while I walked through the house to the verandah, or he is enduring wet, cold and hungry conditions with no hope of surcease.   I visualize rescue but hope for a quick and painless end.  Salud Cornelius. Your tiny yellow and green life was important and will be missed.