In October 2003, my friend Natalie who is the queen of "budgie-broking" and who had saved so many little souls from their former bad life, once again was on her mission. She was looking for new homes for a handful of birds whose former owners didn't want to keep them any longer. Within this group of birds, there was a friendly, older female. Unfortunately, she was unable to fly, Natalie reported, but this budgie was also really dear and gentle. The destiny of the poor bird touched my heart. Therefore I decided to adopt her and let her share her life in the future with other disabled birds in an accident-proof environment.

On 11/08/03, her great day has come. Helene, that's how I called her, moved into my bird room. But before that, she had to take a lot of adventures and traveled several hundred kilometers from the north of Germany to my town in the Ruhr area. There were other budgies joining Helene on her trip because Natalie wanted to deliver some of them to somebody living fairly close to my home. When she came here, there were two male budgies and Helene in the transportation cage. One of these males was also unable to fly, and therefore I spontaneously decided to give him a new home, too. His name is Orpheus and you can read his story here. By the way, it took just one week until they became a couple. They were happily in love until the day Helene died.

When I took a closer look to Helene, who felt very comfortable in her new home within a few minutes, I stated that due to an earlier, badly healed injury there was something wrong with her right wing. It seemed to me as if her wing has been broken. Due to this, it has become useless for the bird. A few days later, Natalie got news for me. She has been told by Helene's former owner that a cat has beaten the budgie with its claws a while ago and afterwards the wing was damaged. Poor Helene! Imagine all her fear and pain she had to suffer!

The colour mutation of this beautiful budgie lady is called Normal in grey-green. Helene's plumage looked wonderful; it showed a semi gloss brilliance and was smooth. Unfortunately, I didn't know how old Helene was when she became a member of the Birds-Online-flock. I guess she was between three and five years old at this time.

Helene's time in my little flock was always fine I guess. She was happy and full of energy everyday. And - what was so lovely about her - she trusted me more and more each day and even became very tame. Especially within the last two weeks of her life she was so cute. My little feathered friend loved to sit down in my hand and rest there full of trust that I would never do her any harm. Maybe this was her way of saying Goodbye to me in her own special way... At the late evening of 10/30/2004, Helene was hit by an apoplectic stroke. It was so heavy that there was only one thing left for me to do: I went to the veterinary clinic and the doctor put her to sleep because she was suffering so much.

At the end of this short introduction to Helene, I want to tell how much I admire Natalie's untiring efforts for budgies in the context of her activities in delivering them to new homes. My thankfulness is eternal because without her help, my dear Helene could not have moved into my bird room - and into my heart! Natalie, you're the greatest! And Helene, I will never forget you. Your place in my heart will always remain yours, no matter what may come.

Meaning of the name
Once again, I named one of my budgies after an astronomical object. In this particular case, a tiny moon of the planet Saturn inspired me when I was looking for a name. The 18 km x 16 km x 15 km big rock moves around the ring planet on the same orbit as the much bigger moon Dione. Helene is about 60 degrees away from the other moon. In the Greek mythology, Helene (=Helen or Helena) was the daughter of Zeus and Leda. Her twin brothers were Castor and Polydeukes who is called Pollux in Latin.