This is the first picture I was able to take of all four of the little guys together following Chaos' arrival. Chance
and Chaos are on the wood perch, Mieli is on the cage roof below them and Apollo is on the rope perch at the
far right. It was actually quite rare to get all four of them to stay in close proximity when they were outside
the cage (unless there was a treat attracting their common attention). Chaos can't fly and as a result
he is very shy about coming out of the cage at all, and trying to keep them all together on
the rare occasion that he does was nearly impossible.


The above is the only picture I have with all four together; Chance developed nerve damage affecting his right leg in November 2011 which eventually affected other parts of his body. He passed away January 18, 2012 from those complications.

And then, because Chance had been so outgoing, Mieli and Apollo got very quiet, so Mickaboo sent them two more flock members, Miracle and Volvo (who arrived on March 4, 2013). They differed in appearance from the rest, although they are both green budgies; Miracle was a clearwing, which means the black markings on his wings and head are a light grey instead, and Volvo was a partial opaline, with more yellow on his head.

It took me almost five months to get them to all sit reasonably close together when the camera was handy, but finally:



There were (as of June 2013) five budgies in the flock. September 26, 2013 brought us Martin, Hyacinth and Peter. But 2014 wasn't a good year: Mieli, like Tiki before him, developed an inoperable tumor near his abdomen and had to be euthanized February 13, 2014; Peter passed away from old age the morning of April 1, 2014, and Apollo left us June 11, 2014 after battling liver damage for more than a year. (I am realizing that there are going to be a lot of budgies waiting for me at the Rainbow Bridge when I die.)

I wasn't able to get them all to sit still long enough for a picture of all eight, so here is one taken the day after Apollo passed away, which shows Martin and Hyacinth for the first time. Peter never had a chance to get his picture taken.



Percy came along two weeks after Apollo left, on June 27, when the family he had been originally adopted by suddenly decided they were "bored with him" (they must be nuts!) and the Mickaboo budgie team decided he was better off living here than going through the foster/adoption process again. I think it was a good decision. (While I never got Percy to sit still with the rest of the flock during his time here, I did save his photo from when he was in the Mickaboo database. Click here to see it.)

Three more Mickaboo budgies came here to live on September 19, 2014. Poppy had a bad wing which both caused him difficulty in flying and doesn't fold against his body at rest, so rather than keep him in foster hoping someone would overlook his imperfection and adopt him anyway we all figured he was better off being part of my flock. And since we were arranging transport for him we took the opportunity to send two more green boys from a huge flock of 60 that were surrendered in April of that year; they look so much alike I called them Copy & Paste (allegedly until better names became apparent, but that never happened).

We lost Miracle less than a year later, on June 15, 2015 ... most likely cause was respiratory failure, says the flock's vet, but she wasn't certain. Volvo made it 22 minutes into the four-year anniversary of his joining the flock (March 4, 2017) before passing due to an enlarged liver. Tumors claimed Percy's life on February 12, 2019 and Martin's on October 8, 2020. Copy followed on December 10 of that same year, of unknown causes.

And as soon as Mickaboo heard about Martin, they immediately offered me a seven-month-old budgie that had been part of a massive aviary surrender only a couple of weeks previous. His name is Brazil and he arrived here a mere 17 days after Martin's passing. He was with me for about 3½ years before suddenly showing signs of distress and dying less than 24 hours later, on April 9, 2024.

We lost Hyacinth to old age (age 14½) on January 11, 2022. Chaos followed not long afterward on February 23, 2022 at age 12. In between, Mickaboo found a couple of little guys who needed me ... BoyPeep and Coco, who came here on February 9. (Coco, however, didn't get to enjoy his forever home for long, passing away on April 4, 2022.) With so many budgies passing away early in the year, there had to be more additions, in the form of Dasher and Kiwi, who joined the flock on August 3.

Poppy always had balance issues and from time to time would fall off his perch while sleeping; on the morning of December 3, 2023, he apparently hit his head on something on the way to the cage floor. However, given that he lived for about ten years with a physical deformity, he had a good long life.



Here are the remaining five budgies (as of December 20, 2023), in one of the rare occasions when they were all outside the cage and staying together on the cage roof.


The budgies have their own e-mail address if you want to write and tell them what pretty little boys they are.