Ever Had a Parrot Stuck in Your Hair?

My parrots had babies several years ago. We kept two -- Miles and Cthulhu. For some reason, they both really like to sit on my head. They can't stay up there too long, else they get tangled up in my hair. Here's what they look like sitting up there:

One time, Jo was away for the weekend and I accidentally left Cthulhu on my head too long. As a result, he got one toe inextricably wrapped up in my hair. A friend was able to come help, so I wasn't stuck with a parrot on my head for the entire weekend. When we finally cut him loose, his toe was abraded to the point that it was bleeding and wouldn't stop. I took him to the vet, who bandaged his foot. Cthulhu kept chewing the bandage, so the vet gave him a collar to keep his beak away from the bandage.

Below is a picture of Cthulhu and Miles, after Cthulhu's visit to the vet. You can see the collar pretty well, but the bandaged foot not so much. That's a toy sitting between the two birds.

Here's another shot of Cthulhu. You can see his bandaged foot pretty well. His other foot is visible up by my finger tips. On some monitors, this picture has reddish tinges around his neck. Rest assured, this is a display artifact and there's no blood on him or the collar.

Cthulhu is fine now. No more collar, no more big bandage, no more claw on that one toe. (The nail-bed was too abraided to allow it to grow back.)

In case you're interested, I lost a big chunk of hair as a result.



The longer, funnier, version of this story is available on request. In person.
Some of it (hand gestures and the like) just don't translate to text.