New Flock 5

The top budgie is Clark. After Sparks passed away, it left a hole in our flock. We wanted to wait longer before getting a new male, but Bruce (bottom right) was pestering Winter (bottom left) heavily, so we felt we needed to fill that gap. Clark is a pretty good-sized budge, and very friendly.

We looked around to adopt first, but there weren't any budgies up for that, so we went to PetSmart. It was a... disturbing experience. They have their budgies separated into multiple enclosures by plumage, and Clark was in one with just one other, a female. The enclosures are kind of small and don't really give them room to move about, as opposed to PetCo where they keep their budgies in one big enclosure with many toys and perches; budgies are a heavily social bird, and work best in groups.

The clerk told us that Clark was their Houdini, that he'd gotten out several times and spent a weekend recently out before being lured back in by his fellows. We got him home, trimmed his wings, put him in the budgie round cage... and he mostly sat there. It took him quite a long time before he ventured out to explore the cage complex, and even then we had to send Winter and Bruce in to show him the ropes. He's proven clever, and he has quite a voice on him, but we feel that the people at PetSmart know nothing about handling birds.

Also, when we expressed concern for the female Clark was with being left alone once we took him home, the employee answered that they had "more product in back to move to the floor." That he'd say something like that to us was just wrong.

Clark takes his name from Clark Kent, aka Superman, to go with our female Bruce, named for Bruce Wayne. We have a history of naming budgies after superheroes; past flock members include Logan and Rogue (both female also -- if you've ever seen how aggressive female budgies are, you'll understand).