Ice-Cream Eating Parrot

I still remember the day when Nagarkar, the forest guard, brought Mitthu to our house 17 years back somewhere in the month of February. It is a Alexandrine Parakeet, Psittacula eupatria, specie. My dad worked as a Assistant Conservator of Forestbefore getting retired 2 years back. Nagarkar, who reported to him had picked it up from the jungle where it had fallen from its nest and lay abandoned. He asked us if we wanted to keep it as a pet and we happily agreed.

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The word Mitthu is the Marathi translation for “ parrot “. Our Mitthu was barely 2-3 weeks old when it entered our lives. It didn’t  have any feathers and had to be fed by placing the food directly into its throat (similar to how birds feed their young ones). We used to feed it a coarse paste of soaked lentils. It used to shriek in its shrill voice all the time and we used to wonder how it’ll be able to mimic sounds. In fact, the Alexandrian Parakeet is well known for its mimicking abilities.

In a span of 1 year, Mitthu developed very beautiful feathers and started to fly. One day, as soon as we removed it from the cage , it took a big flight only to get caught in the ceiling fan. Its right wing got clipped and there was a deep injury. We immediately took it to a veterinary doctor who applied some medicines on the wound and gave some tablets for healing. I cried so much that day. I prayed to God to save our Mitthu who had become such an integral part of our life.    

Mitthu survived that accident but would not be able to fly ever again

Mitthu speaks a few words like “Mitthu” , “Who’s There” etc and it whistles beautifully. It also mimics the sounds of the neighbor’s cat and dogs. Some native birds come near its cage to eat the leftovers and Mitthu even imitates their voice. One day, I saw that Mitthu was imitating the bird’s voice and few minutes later the bird came (I guess, it heard the sound and assumed that somebody of its own is calling). That bird watched Mitthu for a while and started making the same sounds. Somebody who had not seen both Mitthu and that bird making the sounds would never have imagined that the voices were coming from different bird species.   

People say that the birds learn to mimic many voices if you make them say those words to get what they want. Meaning, you give food only when it calls urname and says “gimme food”. But, Mitthu never had to ask for anything. We always used to pamper it a lot with expecting it to talk. The end result is that Mitthu has grown very haughty and speaks only when it feels like .    

Over these years, we have fed him with the home food that we eat rather than the seeds and grains which the specie usually eat. It eats all the fruits, green chillies and tomatoes with relish. All along Mitthu has developed a liking for either very healthy or tasty food (most of which cannot be imagined as bird food). It has to be fed a soaked almond every morning along with pieces of cashew biscuits. It likes sweet dishes very much. I have noticed that whenever mom prepares a sweet dish, Mitthu gets very excited and does not eat the normal food and just waits for the sweet to be served . I really don’t know how it figures out that a sweet dish is being prepared. Recently, when I had been to my mom’s place (after my marriage) we got some ice cream for the evenings and we used to share it with Mitthu as well.  When we returned home, Mom was saying that since the day you left; every time after dinner Mitthu gets excited and expects to be served ice-cream. Amazing, right?    

A single article is not enough to go through so many anecdotes related to Mitthu. I am wrapping up the article now and will try to come up with the next series shortly…