Just over a week ago, we picked up our newly-adopted cockatiels, Simon & Garfunkel, at their Mickaboo foster home in San Francisco. We have been enjoying getting to know each other. They are in their office cage next to me now nibbling at each other, butting their heads together, and making squeechy noises.

We have discovered that Garfunkel will bite unless we pick up Simon first. If Simon gets to do something, Garfunkel forgets about biting in his eagerness to join in.

We had them checked out by Dr. Fern Van Sant, DVM, at For the Birds here in San Jose. She said that the guys had been well cared for and loved in their foster home and were about five years old. Both of them have damaged wings – probably from trying to fly in a cage with horizontal bars. Only one wing out of the four had feathers long enough to clip this time but we hope to see their wings growing back.

Images Copyright 2009 Katy Dickinson

Two new cockatiels	Two new cockatiels
New cage	John and new cockatiels

After our beloved 15-year-old pet Princess Birdie died earlier this summer, we started working with Mickaboo to adopt two cockatiels. Mickaboo is an all-volunteer organization in the San Francisco Bay Area dedicated to rescuing companion birds who have been neglected, abused, injured or surrendered. Or, as their home page says, they are “bird-loving people who want to change the world – one bird at a time.”

After sending-in-the-application and going-to-the-class and being-interviewed-by-phone and being-visited-at-home, Mickaboo approved us to adopt. As a result of what we learned during this extensive pre-adoption process, we bought a bigger bird cage, better bird toys, and different food. We then sent emails to several Mickaboo homes fostering cockatiel pairs to find out about their birds. Last weekend, we went to San Francisco to visit two birds we saw on Mickaboo’s web site and we fell in love. Our two new guys are great singers of duets and will be named Simon & Garfunkel. We are very excited that they will be coming home soon!