In Memoriam: Ciro #1, Nov. 1995 - Apr. 2011

My dear little bird Ciro in Sarajevo died today at 11.30am Bosnian time. He was 15.5 (or 16.5) years old. We got him around March 8th, but not sure if it was '96 or '95, during those war time years. He was about 4 months old when we got him, so he was born at the end of '95 or '94.

I want to document his life here. And his passing. For my own sake. While the emotions are still raw. Death is never easy to come to terms with. Death of a pet, one that was part of our lives for so long. On some level it seems as if death of a pet is harder to accept, and those who have not had pets don't understand what it means.

It is so final. It will be a long post, as I want to record many memories of him here.

His name doesn't have a special meaning, but it's the same name as elephant Dumbo had in Bosnian translation of that cartoon. He got in trouble a lot, and his mother had to call out to him to find him, "Ciiiirooo, Ciiirooo..." and he was kind of like that - hence the same name.

When we first got him, from a lady named Slavica who was raising about 50 lovebirds in her apartment, he was pretty wild. I would spend, literally, hours at a time with my hand motionless inside his cage for him to get used to it. It took probably couple of months, at least, before he was not afraid of the hand and would stand on my finger. When he was about 6 months old, in his cage outside on the balcony, on a nice summer day, we found him on the bottom of the cage laying down, literally, on his belly, his had tilted to the side and his wings relaxed. We thought something happened to him. When he heard us he woke up. He was just relaxing in the sun. Until then, we've never seen a bird laying like that, but he discovered it to be so good. Ever since, he often would sleep like that, in his cage, in our hands, or talking naps with mom under a blanket.

He soon got so used to us handling him, that he was completely content snuggling with us, totally relaxed in our hands. And it wasn't just standing relaxed on our palm; no, it was lay-down-head-touching-hand-drop-wings-not-use-legs type of relaxed. Complete and utter surrendering.

His feathers were beautiful colors; bright red head and chest, two tones of green on his stomach, back, and wings, and turquoise lower back. When he was about year old he started plucking his tail feathers. At first it was just a spot, about 1cm round, and it was a wound for months. We tried all sorts of things, ointments, a neck collar, baby powder, red paprika...and nothing worked. He would pull feathers out, hop in circles from pain, but still do it again. In about 6 months he had no more tail. It used to be beautiful, black with red and turquoise feathers. It was all gone. He was still able to fly with no problems. And he was still super adorable, just lacked some feathers. Some told us he is craving more attention, but all the extra time we spent with him, and extra toys, and nothing helped. Not even a female bird.

While we lived in Dobrinja, he escaped several times. He flew outside of the apartment at least 10 times. He would find a barely opened window, and get out on the street, fly down to a tree, or neighbour's window/balcony. Sometimes we were able to just pick him up if he was somewhere low, or we'd have to go ring on person's apartment if he flew up high. He always waited for us to come get him, instead of coming down to us. We'd usually see the moment when he flies out, so would be able to track the direction he went. One time, however, we just noticed he was not in the apartment. We kind of panicked, because it could have been couple of hours since we last saw him. We did a quick search in front of our building, but didn't see him. We then came back in to quickly write down some fliers to put on buildings around. Realizing this search would take few hours, I decided to grab some chocolate from the refrigerator before I leave. I remember putting inside some pudding with whip cream on the top couple of hours before that. When I opened the refrigerator, guess who flew out - Ciro! He was covered in whip cream, and scared and cold, not sure where he was for those two hours. He must have landed on a pudding bowl inside while I was putting the rest of them in, and just shut the door on him. He was so happy to see us. So were we!

During one of his escapades, he found himself a wife. He got out through the balcony on one side of the building, and couple of hours later landed on our balcony on the opposite side of the building. We never understood how he was able to figure that out; to go around the building, 8 story, 8 entrances building, and out of so many windows and balconies find ours. Three days later, on that same balcony, landed a female lovebird. Now, lovebirds are not so common pets in Sarajevo, so for one to just land on our balcony, plus be a female, and it happening just a few days after his little adventure - he must have found her and explained to her how to get there, we concluded. We named her Zeljka, because it rimes with Znatizeljka - the curious one. We used to call Ciro Zeljko - Znatizeljko, because he really was curious, and used to say we should have named him Zeljko, so when she came along, we gave her that name. But he was really the curious one. He always had to be in the center of any action; dish washing, hammering, any noise producing...anything that was happening, he would be at the tip of our fingers to see first hand what's going on.

Zeljka was a wild one, and never got to be as tame as Ciro. We had her for 4 years, and only that last year she was comfortable enough to sit on our finger, but even then, very cautiously. They had about 4-5 nests, with about 4-5 babies each, so in total they had about 20 children. We gave away or sold all of them. Ciro was a great husband and father. While Zeljka was inside their nest box, and one of us would approach the cage, he would run inside and stand on top of her to protect her. :) He actually stood on top so he would see through the hole. She would stop feeding the chicks after just a few weeks, and then Ciro would step in. She was jealous of them, even, so he had to feed her as well. I remember him frantically going to each of those mouths to feed them all. When the chicks were old enough to get out of the nest, we would put them on the floor and he'd teach them how to walk. He was so cute with them, kind of encouraging them and showing them to come closer to him. It was the same with flying. He would walk and chirp around them, then fly away a bit and call them to come. The chicks, and Zeljka, wanted to be fed even once they could fly, and I remember him looking kind of out of his mind when all 5 would always follow him wherever he went.

He never mastered the nest making. Zeljka was an expert at it, chewing strains of paper or twigs, sticking them in her back feathers, and then flying with them into the cage. Ciro didn't have any feathers on his lower back, so he couldn't put any twigs there, but he also couldn't cut a straight line. It was funny when he would just stand next to Zeljka while she worked on those papers and then start pulling those pieces out of her back, before she would take them to the nest.

But he was always jealous when we tried to give any attention to Zeljka. We would get excited when she would build up the courage to get on our hand, but then he would come and chase her away. Or if they were both standing on the arm, he had to be closer to us. He always was such "maza" (cuddler). :) He absolutely loved having his head scratched. For hours. He looked like he was in nirvana, tilting his head in all directions, completely loose and relaxed. He would let us do anything to him. We would flip him upside down, with his little feet up in the air. My brother had a special hand motion to make him do that. I would grab him tight on the side of the wings, and play little airplane with him.

Ciro was so sweet when blowing kisses. We taught him that by kissing his beak while bringing our head forward. He then learned the sound but also the motion as well. He would then stretch his little head a bit to the side, toward us, and make the sweetest kissing sound: "pssth". He at first would just repeat it when we would kiss him, but later he did it on his own, when he just felt like sending kisses, like when he is grateful we took him out of the cage, or just when he is happy sitting on our shoulder. Such a sweet gesture.

He was always ready to play. He absolutely went nuts when we'd start clicking with something, like metal against the glass or ceramic, which produced high pitch sound. His face would change, his feathers all pull tight, his eyes wide open, he'd start walking around quickly, chirp, fly away and then come back instantly. It was just so amusing to play with him that way. It was never boring with him. Since he loved banging noise, he loved to throw things off the table; pens, scissors, little plates or spoons in the kitchen, even remote control he would drag to the edge to throw down. Later he learned to even grab little plates under coffee cups, because that made noise when the cups flipped over, so we had to watch out for him when having coffee. He loved to play with ladles or small metal pot covers that would spin on the aluminum top next to kitchen sink. He would grab it and raise it high and then let it go so it spins. That gave him tons of enjoyment.

Video: "Throwing scissors on command" from Ciro #1

The cutest game was hitting with a pen or scissors against something and then raising it high and holding it like that for a moment. Ciro would repeat that motion with his head, and raise his head real high, stretch his legs to stand taller, and freeze like that. Then we hit again, and he'd raise the head even higher, and stay motionless, intently waiting for our next move. After few times his excitement gets over the top, and he starts chirping, has to fly away and returns in a second for more fun. Loved that one!

Since he didn't have all the feathers, he always seemed to enjoy being warmed up. One of his favorite places was sitting on top of a warm pot cover in the kitchen. His little cross feet together, on the cover handle while the rest of the metal was too hot, and then he would come down and lay on the metal to soak up the warmth till there is none left. His cage was on a table in the kitchen for most of the year, until winter when both him and mom would bunker down in the warm living room. He loved exploring the kitchen, chew on papers on the top of the cabinets, the warm pots, the noise making possibilities of the utensils on the aluminum sink top. He took his baths always only, only on top of the sink in one corner, under the dripping faucet. Mom didn't have warm water most of the time from the faucet, and the cold water in Sarajevo is really cold, so he would quickly run and splatter under that cold water. He really would barely wet himself, but, because of the missing feathers, would look and feel quite helpless when he was wet. He would groom himself and liked to be scratched for a long time afterwards.

Ciro loved chocolate, even though we much later found out birds were not supposed to have any. He knew how the packaged chocolate looks like, and would chew through the wrapping to get to it. He liked sugar too, but couldn't figure out how to get the top off from the sugar cup. Zeljka was an expert at it, so he would just stand next to it and wait for her to open it. He went nuts for 'Lokum' biscuit that mom had with tea every morning. He would bounce impenitently until she would give him a piece on his plate on the table. He always ate really, really fast, as if someone was chasing him, which just added to the cuteness of how much he was enjoying his treat. He ate many of the human food: peas, pasta, rice, beans (he'd get them all over his face :)), apples, oranges...And yet, he was always very slender. All that flying kept his figure. Plus the lack of feathers made him look thinner.

Video: "Cuddling" from Ciro #1

He loved to fly; hence all of his escapes. In the morning he would do laps and fly from one side of the apartment to another in circles. He'd do this for half an hour in absolute joy to be alive. If he heard birds outside he'd fly onto the curtains. When I played with him on the coffee table by spinning a plastic coaster, he loved to quickly fly to the kitchen, just besides himself from joy, and then in a second fly back for more play.

Ciro would get super excited whenever he heard other birds, either outside or on TV. He'd start chirping and flying around. He would even get on top of the TV and look down on the screen to figure out where the sound was coming from. He always loved to play with other birds, too. Whenever we'd take him somewhere where there were other pet birds, he would be the friendliest bird ever. When I would talk on the phone with my mom, she would always put him on the phone, and he would respond when I call out to him, and especially if he heard my bird chirping. He was just such a happy bird.

He had lots of excitements in his life. He went through a move to another apartment and adjustments to find his new favorite places. He stayed in several other places when we were traveling somewhere. Mom would take him in her hand, instead of cage, when she visited some friends in the neighbourhood. He was especially spoiled once mom retired and was able to spend more time with him. They had their routine. He would take long naps with her, just curled up under a blanked with her. He would just get under the blanket when he saw her laying down on the couch, lay down with his head on the side, and peacefully sleep for an hour or two. Or if mom laid down in the other room and he was not tired, he would fly to the door and wait for her quietly.

Ciro always prefered to sleep laying down than on the pearch, or swing like some other birds we've had before. During and in years after nesting, he slept in the (empty) nest box. Once we got him his tent, he loved it. He always had one side reserved for entrance and the other for exit. He was particular in that way. :) He never cared much for mirrors, again unlike the parakeets we had before. He had one in the cage, just to block an opening, but he never used it. He did love a shining pendulum on a wall clock, and whenever the door was a bit open, he'd sneak in and stop it. He had a thing for clocks, or clicking sounds, or just noise in general.

Video: "Playing with remote" from Ciro #1

He knew how to get under our skin, and do the cutest things that would make us love him just that much more. One of his favorite games was of him hiding behind some picture frames and mom trying to get to him. He had his favorite alarm clock that mom better not touch when he is close. He loved to flip it over and then stand on it while it's ticking. While she was on the computer he had to be there right on her hand. When she was washing the dishes he was right on her hand. He had his favorite chair where he would fly to poop.

He was slowly getting worse over the last few months. First, he was able to fly less and less starting about 6 months ago. A measure of success got smaller and smaller. At first it was a success if he could fly from a cabinet on one wall to one on another wall. Then if he could fly from one couch to another. Then if he could even fly from a shelf down onto the rug. He was at that stage for several months, including three months mom was here in the US and her friend Ljelja was taking care of him, which she did an amazing job of. They celebrated the New Year's together and she took this last photo we have of Ciro.

In the last 40 days since mom got back to Sarajevo, it was apparent he was getting progresivelly older. His flying down onto the carpet was more like a flop. He would sleep more, and generally not be interested in much play. Then about 10 days ago, after mom left him on a top shelf to play, she found him a bit later on the lower shelf of the cabinet that is sticking out. He probably fell trying to let himself jump on the carpet. But maybe he just jumped down to this shelf. It appeared his right leg was hurting, but he could still stand on it. Mom nursed him the following days, holding him in her hand for most of the day while she was at home, putting a little towel on the bottom of his cage where he could lay, giving him to eat from table and her hand, and just lots of love and attention. During this time he stopped chirping all together. She was really torn about her Saturday day-trip she had planned for before, but since he appeared to be eating and standing that morning, she decided to go. She wasn't able to enjoy it all, though, because constantly she was thinking about Ciro, and how he'll be when she comes back. During this entire time mom was constantly under stress if he will be alive when she gets back home from anywhere, or when she uncovers him in the morning. She told me several times she doesn't know she can endure this trial.

In the last 5 days he was loosing his balance a lot, swaying from side to side, and backwards. Since he doesn't have any tail to balance when he sways back, he would often flip on his back and then start panicking and flapping his wings. Mom would leave him in his tent in the cage and had to drag him out to take him, and the entire time she was home she would hold him. On Monday he barely ate anything, but gave us a glimpse of hope in the evening when mom held up the food for him, while holding him from both sides so he wouldn't fall, and he ate for a full hour. On Tuesday he again ate very little, again was swaying, and slept in mom's hand and shoulder the entire time she was home. He even pooped twice on her while laying down, which he rarely ever did, which meant he just was not moving enough to let her know he needs to go. This morning he wouldn't eat again and was very lethargic, his head down and eyes closed almost the entire time, his breathing heavy. Around 11.15, he opened up his eyes wide, and mom walked him around the house and on the balcony for the next ten minutes, talking to him and giving kisses. After having his eyes closed for most of the time in the last days, having him look at her wide eyed for so long was so strange. As if he was taking it all in one last time. Or asking for help. For those ten minutes, that will forever stay engraved in mom's memory (and probably mine, too, through her telling me about it), they looked intently at each other, saying their good byes. She showed him everything one last time. He lowered down his wings. Relaxed his head on her fingers. Took few short breaths. And then just expired in her hand around 11.30. It sounded like he went peacefully. I hope he wasn't in pain. But it was a torture to watch.

He will be laid down to rest near his wife Zeljka in our back yard in Sarajevo. Rest in peace, dear Ciro. You were the best little bird we ever had. You are irreplaceable.

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