"Widower is looking for a new beginning" - a lonely hearts ad written by Charly would have looked like that in case he was a human. Since he wasn't his thoughtful and caring owners tried to find a way to make him happy again after he lost his beloved wife. That's why we got in touch with each other, and after writing a few e-mails we decided that the lonely little gentleman should move into my bird room. We hoped he would feel better here and make some new friends.

Sometimes budgies don't settle in when they move into a new flock. We discussed this topic and we decided that we would try to find another home for Charly if necessary. But we were too anxious. From the minute he moved into the bird room Charly was a member of the flock. He felt at home immediately and he started wooing all hens even though some of them were "married"! Well, he for sure was a feathered womanizer. :-)

He didn't live in a relationship with only one female budgie here at my place. Charly who was born in mid 2002 often flirted with Niobe and after that he turned to Maia or Vivian. Just after that he for example focused on Rana. His behaviour reminded me a lot of my beloved Rudi who regrettably died in January 2005. The two males could have been twins because Charly looked like a wild budgie just as Rudi did.

His acrobatic way of flying and his enchanting songs made me happy and I loved to watch the flock even more since he became a member of this "crazy bunch". Charly didn't like to step on my finger or hand, but he was not too frightened. But in fact it didn't matter to me that he was not that tame.

Regrettably Charly suffered from a liver disease ever since he lived at my place. One symptom is that the beak grows in an extreme way and therefore I had to cut it each three to four weeks. We were a great team and the procedure each time was over within seconds because he didn't move as if he knew I was only trying to help him. In May 2006 I noticed he became short-winded. When I palpated him I could feel his liver what was a bad sign because in general this organ can hardly be sensed through the skin. I brought him to an avian vet who confirmed my staggering presumption: Charly suffered from a liver tumour. There was nothing we could do for him to save his life.

I resolved to bring him to the vet and let him die without pain as soon as he would show any sign of distress. But his life story ended in another way. In the morning of 06/02/06 he suddenly became very weak and after a few minutes he died among his friends in the bird room. I was with him and wished his soul a good journey. It makes me so sad that he only became about four years old due to this terrible disease. He was an amazingly enchanting budgie and I will miss him much.

His favourite two hobbies were eating carrots and bathing as you can see in the photos below. The right one shows him just after jumping into the "floods".