The 06/06/93 was a pleasantly warm summer day. I opened my window widely in order to get some fresh air into my apartment. Mira, my single kept budgie who should get some feathered company by the end of the summer, sat in his cage close to the opened window. Regarding the planned purchase of another budgie everything went completely different. Suddenly, Mira's chirping was replied from outside by characteristic budgie contact calls. A few minutes later, the on the left shown male budgie flew right into my room and sat down on Mira's cage hungrily staring at the food dishes.

Little Ceti was roughly six weeks old when he found his way into my home through the opened window. He was nearly starving, weighed too little and his plumage was damaged what implied he had been outside in nature for more than only a few days. Nobody reacted to my newspaper advertisements ("Budgie found"), so I decided to keep hold of the handsome bird. After some weeks in my home, he showed first disease symptoms that weren't noticeable when I brought him to the vet right after he has arrived in my home. Ceti had aqueous excrements, partly with some traces of blood, regurgitated his food and often seemed to be very weak. The vet diagnosed a poisoning. When Ceti was outside in Germany's wilderness, he probably fed on something he better should have not eaten. I think he nibbled on a poisonous plant what caused the big trouble he would be in later on.

For a bit more than four months, me and my vet desperately tried to safe Ceti's life. Unfortunately we lost this fight and I had to say goodbye to my little tame and sweet darling. Ceti died in the morning of 10/23/93 due to his poisoning. He was less than half a year old when he deceased. He had become a very close friend of Mira during his lifetime so that Ceti's death left emptiness in the life of his friend.

Meaning of the name
Since Ceti became Mira's closest friend shortly after arriving in my home, I named him after the same star that I chose for naming Mira. In the constellation "Cetus" (a whale in the starry night), one can find a special star that varies in its brightness. This star is called "Mira Ceti".