Parrots and Power Cuts
Have
you ever experienced a power cut while you have been parrot keeping? We thought
we would share our experience on a night in February 2001.
It was about 10.00pm on the night and everything just cut
out, no lights,
no phone, and we couldn't see a thing! The parrots were not in their cages,
we only had Bobby and Oscar then, and we were in a panic!!
First things first, as you do we went searching for candles to give us some
light to work with, at least to get the parrots in their cages for safety.
Of, course, the candles are never were you expect them to be! We eventually
found them and lit a couple, took them into the living room where the parrots
were and all hell broke lose!
This was the first time Bobby and Oscar had even seen a candle and they were
terrified! They flew off the top of the curtain rail, the breeze from their
wings caused the candles to blow out, once again we were in pitch black!
We really couldn't see anything, suddenly I felt something land on my chest,
Bobby had somehow managed to find me in the dark, I picked him up and felt
my way around and put him in his cage. One rather scared but safe parrot!
Now for Oscar......Mark could just see Oscar moving about on the valance rail,
so he climbed up on a chair and cupped him in his hands, finally both parrots
were now in their cages.
We lit some more candles and kept them well away from the cages, just a couple,
to give enough light to put fresh food and water in the cages.
Now we just had to find the moorhen.....she had took to the ground to hide,
we spent over an hour searching for her, till we found hiding under a chair!
We managed to get through the rest of the night fine, the birds hardly moved
from their perches, they were very uneasy with candles in the room. It made
us think though, how we have to be more prepared for the future, we did not
want to go through the same panic and have flying birds crashing into things
with candles in the same room.
We have since bought battery powered lights that you can just stick to the
walls or doors in an emergency, they give enough light to work in, they are
cheap at £4.99 for two, they are circular in shape and can be ordered
from the kind of mini supplement catalogues you often get in the post.
Power cuts aren't a regular ocurrance by any means, our power failure was
due to a car accident, the driver had driven right into the electrical generator
and caused a major power cut for the whole area. Nevertheless, it made us
think how unpreprepared we were for such an event!
We cannot emphasise strongly enough the need to be prepared, we wasn't and the result was absolute chaos! The battery powered lights are a god send, don't wait for a power cut to buy them, get some before any power cut may happen!
©Copyright 2002