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Melopsittacus undulatus
This is an ordinary picture of a beautiful bird with a necklace around her neck. This picture is 15 years old.In the 5 years that this parakeet was with us,we were able to make some very interesting observations. Usually we kept her wings clipped. She really enjoyed sitting on the trees in the backyard and swinging in the breeze. One day she was a little more stimulated than usual.We had lots of kids visiting her. She was flying around and hit her head on the ceiling. We learnt that CONCUSSION is very much a reality in birds. She lost consciousness for nearly 40 minutes. in those 40 minutes we were continuously talking to her and stroking her head. After she opened her eyes , She sat in a dazed state for a few days in her cage.She had memory loss. She was not able to fly or tumble on the floor. Nor did she chirp or tweet,She had no appetite.During the next few weeks we spend a lot of time talking to her and spoon feeding water and soft fruits. It was almost after 3 weeks that she was on the road to recovery little by little. She was soon doing the normal stuff. Another surprise was when she layed eggs at the age of 4. We were totally puzzled since she did not have a companion. Our vet told us that parakeets produce and lay eggs when they are ready and some lay infertile eggs when no male is present. Once she manged to escape and ,flew about 5 rounds around a lake in our neighborhood. Fortunately she returned to the point from where she had taken off. We found her perched on a tree and since she was familiar with my whistle she hopped down on my shoulder. We are happy that she was able to have some of the experiences ,similar to a bird who is free.