My mom called me last night to let me know our bird Taz had passed away.
Apparantly she hadn't been feeling too well lately and wasn't eating much and it was just her time. Taz was a rescued wild Quaker Parakeet. When I was young (somewhere between 6 and 9) my Dad was delivering his mail route in South Florida when he found her on the ground. She was just learning how to fly and had fallen out of the nest. He took her to the vet and they re-broke her wing so it would heal correctly and we have had her ever since. A few years after we had her, for whatever reason that I can't remember, I got a blood sample from her toenail so we could tell what sex she was and although we thought it had been a he all those years it had been a she. Anyway, Taz loved me and my Mom. Half the time she was ok with my Dad, on a good day she let my sister bring her treats. Everyone else was liable to lose a finger. For the first half of her life she roamed in and out of her cage as she pleased, terrorizing the cats and hunting the guests. She gave my sisters friend Danielle a sneak attack which resulted in a small scar. She had a close call with my Grandma Jill's daschund once, but she made it out alive. She liked table food and demanded to be included during dinner at most times. Her favorite past times were bathing in a bowl, ripping up papers and snuggling with my mom or I. She will forever be remembered by both those who loved and hated her.

If you'd like to read more about her species, you can do so here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monk_Parakeet
http://www.qp-society.com/
http://www.monkparakeet.com/

If you'd like to honor her memory you should go rent "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill". It's a touching documentary about wild parrots and it addresses the pros and cons of them being both wild and domesticated.
The film's website is here: http://www.wildparrotsfilm.com/
Watch the trailer:


Here's one of the last pictures I took of her at Christmas 2006 and then her enjoying some "tree time" in May of 2005: