That's an awful 'My first job' story.
I've seen huge flocks of budgies in the deserts of Western Australia,
around any small waterhole.
Budgerigar is reputed to come from an Arunta word - 'butcheri-gar' -
meaning 'good to eat'. Don't believe it myself - you'd need a lot for
a feed. More than ten anyway. :-)
Andrew Fildes
afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
On 29/11/2009, at 8:43 AM, Chuck Norcutt wrote:
> I forgot to add that this image brought back some very painful
> memories.
> During my junior year of high school I worked in a pet shop after
> school and on Saturdays. One of my tasks was to keep the bird cages
> clean. One day we got a shipment of about 10 young parakeets
> (budgies)
> which we kept in one large cage. They were exceptionally skittish and
> would climb all over each other in the back of the cage trying to get
> away from me when it was cage cleaning time. Cleaning the cage
> required
> taking it to the back of the shop and removing a tray at the bottom of
> the cage. When the tray was out the opening in front was large enough
> to let these small birds out. But I never worried about that since
> they
> were so afraid of me that they always cowered together in the back of
> the cage.
>
> Then one day, after removing the tray on the bottom and turning around
> to set it down somewhere I heard a large fluttering of wings. I
> turned
> around just in time to see all 10 of the birds making a break for
> freedom by dashing out the hole left by the missing tray. Wouldn't
> you
> know it. The all dashed for the front of the store which has a large
> window covering its entire front. It doesn't take parakeets very long
> to travel 50 or 60 feet and they can get up to full speed in that
> distance. Which is what they did. The I saw and heard each bird go
> splat, pow, bang, thump, whack, crack, twang, oomph, thwack, kerblam.
> It was all over in a few seconds and every bird was dead. Do this
> day I
> don't know how I managed to keep my job. But I did learn a lesson.
--
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