There probably wasn't much hope for her the very minute i first saw her, but we tried anyway, she and I. Too many years of not enough food, not enough light or heat, not enough care of any kind! We brought then home anyway, she and Romeo, to large round cages in the living room upstairs. Bald Blue and Gold Macaws were not a pretty sight, yet they had some fetching ways about them.
The night we ate chili and crackers, Romeo asked for a cracker, saying "Crackers?" with that note of interrogation that made it a definite question. Who could resist? Not me, so I got Romeo a cracker; if he got one, everybody got one. Then a most amazing thing (for me) happened. Romeo went over, took Julliette's cracker away from her, set it in one of the food dishes and fed her his cracker. He didn't feed her anything else that I ever saw, but if they had crackers, he fed his to Julliette and then fed hers to her.
I never did figure out why he did this. I surmise that for many years crackers were all they got aside from small black sunflowers. Probably because he could ask for them. he was so tender with her, the poor, bald, grey-skinned thing that she was. he would step aside and let her eat and drink first. often, if we came into the cage, he would stand in front of her as if guarding her. When new people came over, he would be okay until, and unless someone started to laugh at the bald bird. When that happened, he would raise his neck feathers, puff out his face, turn red and say, "No, no, no!"
Even though we kept them in our living room in cages too small to breed in, with no nest boxes, (we did not want them to breed), they gave us our first opportunity to see how Macaws copulate. Shameless things that they were and as poor and ugly as she was, Romeo loved her! he told her the only way he knew, with loving and crackers.
Romeo still called "Crackers?" and i still gave them, only to see again and again this 'dumb animal" feed them to his girl. On the sixth of July, I wen out to the garage to feed and clean the birds. Romeo and julliette had moved to more spacious quarters abouttwo weeks earlier. they had a little present for me, an egg. I sometimes think it was their attempt to say thanks for the crackers. I found it hard to believe they would lay an egg right there on the floor in the sand, but they had. macaws which are critically ill and malnourished are not supposed to lay eggs. they not supposed to be able to produce eggshells in that kind of shape.
The next morning the most terrible sounds I had ever heard came from my bird room as soon as the dawn came. I could tell it was Romeo and something was terribly wrong. Running into the bird room i found him clinging to the front of the cage screaming in tones of horror and grief. "Romeo, what wrong, what's the matter?" was all i could say, only to discover Julliette dead in the sand next to her egg. "Oh Romeo, I'm sorry, so sorry." I was hurt too, even though i had known her only a few short months out of her 26 year life-span. i saw the most amazing thing then, sometimes I still doubt myself. Romeo got off the side of the cage, went down to the floor, laid down next to her and covered her with his wing. Even when she had died he was still protecting his love. He laid there for what seemed forever with his mate and his egg, mumbling very low sounds that were similarto, but sadder than those they had made while copulating--so mournful. then he looked up at me as if to say she was only playing, not dead, only playing. Looking up pathetically at me he said, "Crackers?" and tried to feed his mate.