mika: my mommy, named camme (short for chameleon), was a dark factor dutch blue. my daddy, red, was a creamino. i hatched on september 08, 2001 and i'm seven years old. i'm a dutch blue edged dilute/greywing. my mommy maya thought i was a girl my whole life because i act like one and she didn't know about the ino sex-link (since my daddy is creamino, i'm a boy). when she finally learned i'm a boy, she kept the japanese girl's name, mika, because she realized i'm a girl trapped in a boy's body. mommy now calls me her little tranny bird. hehehe.
kano: i was rescued in 2004. we don't know what my mommy and daddy were and i'm, at the very least, five years old. when mommy maya was working at a preschool in aiea, a family had found me and given me to her because they couldn't properly care for me and knew she used to have an aviary. my new mommy loved me from day one. and i loved mika from day one, although he was mean to me at the beginning of our friendship. i'm missing some feathers permanently due to him, but mika is my best friend and he has come around and feels the same way about me. ^_^
our mommy: [narrated by mika]she was born and raised in japan for her first seven years. lived in georgia for 1 1/2 years and she's lived in hawaii for the last 21 years now. she's half japanese and half english/irish/scottish/german/native american. she's been a preschool teacher for about four years, going on five soon. she loves watermelon, coach bags, omochi, sleep, and lovebirds!!
her lovebird journey started nearly 10 years ago, when she was living on the big island. camme had flown to mommy's then-fiance/now-ex while he was working. he called our mommy and said, "we've got a lovebird." mommy was so happy she immediately bought a cage, toys, and did her homework on lovebirds. she tried her hardest to learn about mutation genetics from books but she said she's got a bird brain and couldn't grasp it. hehehe. the two went to a local breeder and got camme another df dutch blue companion they named opaka (meaning prism in hawaiian) that they learned to hand feed and wean from the breeder. mommy fell in love with lovebirds the instant she saw all the colors in that breeders aviary!!
the two, hiding camme and opaka in their clothing at the airport, moved back to o'ahu and the journey of having an aviary began. she moved everything out of the bedroom into the living room so we could have a whole room to ourselves. mommy built all our big cages by hand, using stainless steel 16 guage wire mesh. she painstakingly cut and put together cages for her growing family. her hands would be red and raw, but she continued on so we could have nice homes to her liking.
in the meantime, during one of our free-flights, opaka chewed a hole through the window screen and flew away. mommy was so sad. they got red to replace opaka as a companion. mommy ended up with an aviary of 15+ lovebirds!! she had dutch blues, creaminos, df violets, orangefaced greens, pieds... and one cockatiel. mommy loved handraising babies and was happiest during those times.
after mommy's engagement broke off, she had to move back into her parents house because she was a ft college student and only could work pt. mommy's mom didn't like pets at all, so mommy had to make the very hard choice to sell everyone. she begged her mom to let her keep at least one bird, me. mommy felt i was very special. her mom reluctantly said yes.
now, mommy has me and kano and she loves us to pieces. she wants to have an aviary again someday, once she and her bf can get a bigger place or a place to call their own. she really misses the handfeeding stage of a lovebirds life. i think she misses me being dependent on her...
anyway, that is the short version of our story. ^_^
