Today, we found a pet bird in the street. Well, my coworker found it, but he didn’t know what to do, so he left it there.
This poor bird was so hungry that it was chewing on a cigarette butt. It didn’t recognize peanut butter, which is my bird’s favorite, and even though it’s definitely a pet, Street Bird did not like to be picked up. It ran away every time I tried.
Street Bird got hella upset when I took my shirt off and trapped it. Chirpchirpchirp. Like a pissed off tweety bird from a cartoon. Wish I’d recorded it.
The rescue was a success. Street Bird was safe from cars and predators, and for almost 5 minutes, he was too tired to protest his fate. I decided Street Bird is a boy.
“Bird” is a noun with male grammatical gender in my native language. Some Wikipediaing and interneting later, I found out that since Street Bird’s nostrils are blue, that means he’s a boy.
Grammar wins again!
It’s a good thing I have a bird at home. I had everything I needed, complete with a spare carrier, spare food and water bowls, and spare bird food. That little fucker spent 20 minutes gorging himself on seeds when I put him away.
He still wouldn’t let me touch him. He chirpchirped angrily and tried to flutter away if I tried.
But that’s okay – fluttering is a huge improvement over feebly running away. Street Bird is starting to feel better.
For now, Street Bird is our new office pet. We’ll keep him fed and watered, and I’ll bring some toys so he’s not bored.
I went to check up on him after I’d gone to the gym, and Street Bird is doing much better. He looks relaxed, he can reach every point in the carrier (he could only do the floor when I first put him in), and aaaaalmost let me touch him. Then he panicked and started fluttering.
He doesn’t try to escape if you leave the carrier open and walk away, so maybe he’s not lost. Maybe he was left out there on purpose? ? That would be sad.
I hope this is not my new bird. Please tell me someone in downtown SF is desperately looking for a lost parakeet budgie thing. Where could I post to find them?
PS: My girlfriend named him Dewey.
Continue reading about The daring rescue of a parrot in the streets of San Francisco
Semantically similar articles hand-picked by GPT-4
- Girflriend doesn't mind my love affair
- The Angry Walk
- 17. Maj
- I swallowed a dead raccoon
- Adventures in homelessness
Learned something new?
Read more Software Engineering Lessons from Production
I write articles with real insight into the career and skills of a modern software engineer. "Raw and honest from the heart!" as one reader described them. Fueled by lessons learned over 20 years of building production code for side-projects, small businesses, and hyper growth startups. Both successful and not.
Subscribe below 👇
Software Engineering Lessons from Production
Join Swizec's Newsletter and get insightful emails 💌 on mindsets, tactics, and technical skills for your career. Real lessons from building production software. No bullshit.
"Man, love your simple writing! Yours is the only newsletter I open and only blog that I give a fuck to read & scroll till the end. And wow always take away lessons with me. Inspiring! And very relatable. 👌"
Have a burning question that you think I can answer? Hit me up on twitter and I'll do my best.
Who am I and who do I help? I'm Swizec Teller and I turn coders into engineers with "Raw and honest from the heart!" writing. No bullshit. Real insights into the career and skills of a modern software engineer.
Want to become a true senior engineer? Take ownership, have autonomy, and be a force multiplier on your team. The Senior Engineer Mindset ebook can help 👉 swizec.com/senior-mindset. These are the shifts in mindset that unlocked my career.
Curious about Serverless and the modern backend? Check out Serverless Handbook, for frontend engineers 👉 ServerlessHandbook.dev
Want to Stop copy pasting D3 examples and create data visualizations of your own? Learn how to build scalable dataviz React components your whole team can understand with React for Data Visualization
Want to get my best emails on JavaScript, React, Serverless, Fullstack Web, or Indie Hacking? Check out swizec.com/collections
Did someone amazing share this letter with you? Wonderful! You can sign up for my weekly letters for software engineers on their path to greatness, here: swizec.com/blog
Want to brush up on your modern JavaScript syntax? Check out my interactive cheatsheet: es6cheatsheet.com
By the way, just in case no one has told you it yet today: I love and appreciate you for who you are ❤️