It's not easy to type with a bird sitting on the back of my hand, whooping with joy as my fingers flit across the keyboard. My playful cockatiel, Papillon, thinks this is a game and can’t curb his excitement. His joyful shrieks wake Dylan, another cockatiel who'd been dozing on my shoulder.
Now she wants in on the action and flies onto my desk, hopping around my moving fingers, pecking at the keys until she successfully prises off the letter “P” which she nudges to the edge of the desk and onto the floor. She stares down at it quizzically, then looks up at me contritely. scampering back onto my shoulder, she nuzzles my cheek by way of apology.
I know I should ban the birds from the office but I don't have the heart to, and besides, I'd miss their company. Many a story has been written with Dylan and Papillon each side of me, heads tucked under their wings fast asleep, undisturbed by the clicking of the keyboard.
Every day after their breakfast - Rice Krispies, Cheerios and toast, which they love to crunch - Dylan and Papillon fly into the offlce and check out my desk for stray papers, which they eagerly snatch up then waddle off to deposit in another location. Anything that moves is fair game.
When I'm writing by hand they'll join in, chasing my pen as it moves back and forth on the paper. I don't wear shoes indoors and my bare feet offer pienty of fun as they nip at my moving toes, occasionally hitching a ride on top of my foot.
And they're always chasing the Hoover when I vacuum.
There are over 30 million pet birds in America. Seven of them are flying around my apartment as I write: four cockatiels and three budgies, each with their own distinctive personalities.
Dylan, 10, and Papillon, 7, are the most anthropomorphic of all my blrds.
Papillon relates to me as if I'm his birth mother. When I'm cuddling another bird, he expresses iealousy and cries his baby wail until I transfer my affection to him. When he wants a shower, he follows me into the kitchen and cries until I put him in the sink under a running tap.
In the middle of the night, if awoken by a nightmare, he'1l leave his cage, climb up the bedspread and join me on the pillow. If he wants me to wake up, he'll gently preen my eyelashes until I open my eyes.
He knows what he wants and he knows how to ask for it. It's not just instinct, it's logical thought, and he can love, argue and communicate on his own terms. All my birds express similar emotions and behaviour. They're funny, they're willful and they're smart.
Birds are like children: sensitive, emotional and complex. And, Iike children, they crave affection and attention, have arguments with each other or with me, and bicker or sulk if they don't get their own way.
Scientists who previously maintained that birds were incapable of emotion or logic now have irrefutable evidence that they possess these human attributes and the intelligence of a five-year-old child.
Today Papillon discovered a new game. Wandering into the living room. I almost tripped over a carrier bag that was moving stealthily across the carpet seemingly of its own volition. My little rebel had found an empty grocery bag in the kitchen, dragged it into the living room and squeezed his small body inside to the bottom of the bag. He was completely invisible as he pushed it with his beak from inside. Only his squeals of unleashed joy gave him away.
The budgies, Sapphire and Sunshine, and their baby, Boo, interrupt my reverie by flying over my head into the office, landing with a thump on the ceiling fan. The blades quiver and the impact causes them to rotate. This is one of their favourite pastimes. They love their avian merry-go-round and spend hours flying off and landing to see how fast they can make the fan turn. Sapphire, a glorious palette of blue and white, is devoted to his Sunshine, her bright yellow feathers a perfect metaphor for her sunny disposition. They are inseparable.
My life is a daily shared pieasure. Some of my favourite moments are at night when the birds have worn out their daily schedule of misbehaviour and settle in my lap. Often one of them, usually Dylan, climbs up to my shoulder and prods my cheek with her beak until I turn to look at her; then she gently nibbles at my lips. I never tire of her kisses and I know she understands the meaning of what she's doing.
Dylan is my lovebug. I've had her since she was six days old. Something about her presence is immenseiy comforting and no matter how frustrated I am, her closeness always calms me. Sometimes she anxiously flies into the office, sits on my chair and presses her body close to mine so that we're touching. She gains reassurance from the touch.
Papillon, 7 has an entireiy different nature. He's a littie rascal, always on the go. From the moment I laid eyes on him a week after he hatched, I suspected he would be a mischief-maker. It was something in his eyes as he looked up at me from the nesting box. He radiates a lively curiosity and loves to tease and taunt me with his antics. He's constantly poking his beak into places it doesn't belong, and when I admonish him, he regards me indignantly.
Last night I went into the kitchen and found him, his head bent earnestly over my plate of supper. When he heard me, he looked up guiltily, long threads of spaghetti dangling from his beak.
One morning he discovered my make-up in the bath room. I'd foolishly left an open container of bronze face powder on the counter. I was aghast when he flew into my office, squawking piteously, his white, yellow and grey feathers tinted brown. It took two warm foamy baths to restore his feathers to their rightful colours. It was a cold day so I used the hair dryer to dry him. Every time I moved it further away from his body, he waddled closer to it, spreading his wings so that he could feel the warm air underneath. It's now become a ritual. He has access to a bath most days and invariably, dripping wet, he'll come searching for me and wail his baby cry, begging for the hair dryer. Even when I use it on myself, Papillon hears it and comes flying into the bathroom, perching on my free hand and urging me to direct the warm air towards him.
For some time, unknown to me, Sapphire and Sunshine had been furtively building a nest behind the books in the bookcase, chewing on pages to construct it. One day I caught them flattening their tiny bodies on top of the books and inching forward until they reached the other end, where they scrambled out of sight. Once I got wise to their lack of appreciation for the written word, I removed the books and substituted old paperbacks. I find it rather endearing and my day is always brightened with the sound of happy chirping coming from deep in the bookcase.
Living with birds is like living in a house full of children. Friends constantly describe my flock as 'only birds'. But to me, they've never been 'only' anything. They're my devoted companions, and I can't imagine life without them. And if I always seem to be running around after them, it's small price to pay for the affection and entertainment they've brought me for more than 20 years.
Please note that these lovely photos were taken by Barbra Paskin and are her copyright