I’ve heard from the babysitter that Phoebe is doing fine and he’s willing to play with his new caretaker. So since there’s not much new to report, here is the story of how I adopted Phoebe in the first place.

In December 2019, my wife and I (although it was mostly her) were looking for a new bird to adopt after our previous pet died. We came across The Gabriel Foundation, which is a bird rescue located about 40 minutes outside of Denver.

The facility is in the middle of nowhere, with a main building that has the office and several rooms of birds in cages. Then there are additional trailers with birds and an outdoor enclosure with netting, where I assume the birds are allowed to be in the summer months.

We had to visit multiple times before we could adopt a bird. The first visit was educational and we got to see a handful of birds who might be adoption candidates. I wasn’t looking for a big bird, but most of the birds for adoption were bigger and/or older. Some of them had an aversion to people or a bad feather plucking habit.

The leading candidate was Merlin, who was an African Grey. The volunteers brought him into the office and put him on the table. They had us do target training with him for treats and had him sit on our arms and shoulders. Merlin was pretty standoffish. He didn’t have an outgoing personality or an “adopt me” attitude. He was also bigger than I was comfortable with and pretty heavy. His beak could have done a lot of damage with an intentional bite.

During the second or third visit, I wasn’t really sold on Merlin or any of the other birds the two volunteers who were working with us had recommended. One of them asked the other, “What about Phoebe?”

The volunteers took us to a trailer with two sections. The back section had lots of cages with cockatoos. On the end was Phoebe’s cage. He was the smallest cockatoo in the room. He was also clearly plucking his own feathers.

But he was very happy to meet us. He crawled on our shirts and started dancing and yelling “Peekaboo.” He also crawled onto our shoulders and didn’t want to leave (which still happens routinely).

We came back to The Gabriel Foundation one more time to visit Phoebe before we were allowed to adopt him. During the final visit, we met with the foundation’s owner who told us a little bit about Phoebe’s history. From what I remember, he had a longtime human whom he bonded with. He was very dependent on his owner, but wound up in the shelter for reasons I still don’t know about. I think he briefly might have had a second owner, but she gave him up to move.

Now he would have a third (and final) owner thanks to the quick thinking of a volunteer.

So that’s how Phoebe got adopted. He was initially apprehensive about his human-size cage. It was also a challenge to figure out what to do with him at night because he would start screaming after midnight. But I’m sure he is a lot happier now than he was in the cockatoo trailer nearly seven years ago.