In spring 2002, Dione was waiting in the animal shelter of my hometown for somebody who would like to adopt her together with her friends Ares and Capella. Like Capella, Dione didn't correspond with the current beauty ideal because both birds were disfigured by the scars caused by horrible wounds. A friend of their former owner brought the three neglected birds to the animal shelter.

After that, Dione and her friends stayed there for a while. Nobody wanted to give a new home to the three birds due to their outer appearance. A friend of mine who is one of the honorary workers in this animal shelter told me about the three poor budgies. I felt very sorry for them, so I decided to go and turn their fate into something better. On the third of May 2002, Dione and her friends moved into my bird room.

Shy Dione couldn't tell what has happened to her in her past. There was a huge hole in the left part of her cere. I presume that Dione was wounded badly when she was living in her former owner's home. It seemed as if she had to suffer great pain after being wounded then. One was able to look right into her nose through this enormous hole what shocked me when I saw Dione first. During my career as a budgie owner, I have seen a lot of wounds and scars, but Dione's cere made me shiver. The lovely budgie lady didn't loose her quality of life so she enjoyed doing crazy things despite her scar.

The colour mutation of the graceful hen was not pure bred. There were parts of Recessive Pied in bluegrey and white. But there were also parts of Clearwings in her plumage as it seemed to me. Her tail feathers were white with a slight touch of blue and grey. The typical wavelike drawings on her feathers and her throat spots were light grey; her cheek patches were grey with a bit of blue.

Concerning me, Dione stayed shy. But she wasn't when it came to flirting with male budgies. Since she moved into my bird room, she brought me a lot of joy when I saw her climbing acrobatically. Dione's favourite hobby was chewing on pieces of cork oak bark what she loved to do together with Rana.

In the evening of 12/19/03, Dione suffered an apoplectic stroke. I immediately started treating her with the best medicine due to the fact that I knew what to do against those horrible paralysis that follow a stroke. Regrettably, the medicine didn't have any effect. In the early morning of 12/22/03 we lost the fight and Dione closed her eyes forever. She was so cheerful, I will surely never forget her very special way of chirping and the lovable way she behaved when she felt comfortable.

Meaning of the name
Again it was my affection for astrophysics what made me name a bird after an astronomical object. In Dione's case, one of Saturn's moons that measures 1120 km in diameter inspired me. In Greek mythology, Dione was the Earth Goddess. Her name is the feminine form of Zeus, the powerful king of the Greek Gods.