[Ginich]

I have been fostering birds on a regular basis for the last three years. It started during Hurricane Charley in 2004 when Lynda from FWCAS and Debbie from PARROTS rescued over 26 cockatiels from Port Charlotte and Arcadia. At the time, we didn't have a Rescue Room so the tiels were in Lyndas air-conditioned garage in portable cages. When the next hurricane came through, Lynda lost her electric so I picked up eight tiels and brought them home to my guestroom. After quarantine, I fostered 4 of them with 2 different friends and decided to adopt 4 myself. I had tiels in the past but the last had gone to the RB, 5 yrs previous. So Charley, Cha-Cha, Ladybird and Ruby (RB) became my new fids.

Fortunately, I try very hard not to fall in love so I have sucessfully fostered both Tinkerbell, a 14 yr old female IRN, for 2 months, during which she was let out of the cage for the first time in years, given a sunflower free diet and veggies/fruit and had her name changed from Larrybyrd to Tinkerbell. She lives with a Special Needs teacher whom I ocassionally see and get updates from.

Next came Poppi, a young male IRN, who barbered but talked a blue streak! He only stayed a week because my friend came over to see him and immediately fell in love and applied to adopt him!

Then came Shrek, a Quaker and Fiona,a maroon bellied GCC, last Spring. They are both 20 yrs old and were dropped off at the pound with rusty cages and a bag of sunflower seeds because their people were retiring to Mexico. They didn't even tell the shelter workers their names! Anyway, our shelter is not set up for birds so they called FWCAS and Lynda picked them up and asked me to foster them so they wouldn't have to go into the Rescue Room. I tried very hard to find a special home for them together but it didn't happen. They started whistling with my tiels, then came the "Luv you" and "Kissy-Kissy" so finally, I melted, and adopted them in September.

In August, I was asked to foster Chelsea, an Orange Wing Amazon. She was an amazing bird, stepping up from day one. She ate everything and was a very sweet and friendly 6 yr old gal. Did I mention that OWAmazons are one of my dreambirds??? But I have 30 baby fingers in my family right now so no bigs birds for me at this time. A friend of mine told their neighbor who has an M2, sun conure and lovie about Chelsea and they came to visit. It was love at first sight and ,last week, Chelsea went to her forever home. The trick with being a foster mom or dad, is not to fall in love or let them bond with your flock.

I keep telling the birds that they are at Camp BIRDIEBREAD and we are looking for a forever home for them. Shrek and Fiona didn't buy that line-they decided they were part of the flock as soon as I named them and moved them into my office. And they were right!