A Conversation with Gabriel

"Who is Gabriel?", you ask. Gabriel is my ancient cockatiel. He's been my little feathered buddy since the Summer of 1984, when I decided I HAD to have a bird. He was about 8-10 weeks old when I got him and little did I know that 24 years later, he would still be with me, doing his birdie thing. Some of you have met him. For those who haven't, here is the Feathered Old One, himself in a video I took on Sunday, February 8th, 2009, telling a snippet of his own story:



As you can see, he is quite a big talker, although this is a tiny fraction of his 'vocabulary'. He especially likes chatting to feet (the waving pink thing in the beginning of this scene), but will talk to the occasional hand, as you can see. He's a trippy little guy!

Gabriel is getting rather long in the beak these days. His vet says she has never treated a cockatiel as old as he is. Since, he has had a few health problems over the last year and a half (after 23 years of illness-free existence, not too bad), I wanted to get some footage of him for posterity. Still, he may just keep on going--here's hoping!!