With Kallisto - or Callisto in English - it was love at first sight. When he was a very young bird he offered me his neck because he wanted to be caressed. This made my heart melt like butter beneath warm sunlight. Well, if I would have already known that this feathered charmer will become a noisy squaller, I would have build a noise insulation into the bird room before taking Kallisto to my place...

It took only a short while until Kallisto was a full member of my flock of budgies. He immediately discovered that the female birds are kind of wonderful and tried to conquer their heart. At first, all his efforts were for nothing, I guess the ladies thought he was still too young. When he came to me, he was scarcely four months old. His birthday was in September 1998. After a short, but violent affair with Sirius - the result of this liaison is their lovely daughter Rana - he convinced Wega from his qualities as a feathered lover.

They have been a lovely couple for nearly two years. In the beginning of December '01, Kallisto suddenly fell in love again with the gorgeous Sirius. He immediately tried to raise a little family with her. After his beloved Sirius died at Christmas without any warning, Kallisto was full of grief and everybody could easily see that he suffered from a broken heart. He refused feeding since the day his wife passed away and six days later, on New Year's Eve 2001, he followed his mate into heaven. I buried him right next to his wife Sirius in the garden of my parents. It is so sad that I haven't been able to convince this poor soul of the fact that life can be beautiful even without the marvelous Sirius around us. It surely is less colourful since she left, but now another amazing little friend followed her and took away a lot of joy from my bird room. I really hope that Kallisto is well wherever he may be and hopefully he found what he was desperately looking for...

Kallisto's colour mutation is called Banded Pied. Besides this, the bird was a yellowface with an opaline plumage in mauve and in addition he was also a cinnamon bird. One can see the latter by having a look at the dark areas in his plumage. Those parts that normally are black show out in a lighter tone (brown). Unfortunately I do not know how a specialist would call this mixed colour mutation of Kallisto.

Meaning of the name
Kallisto is the second largest moon of the gas planet Jupiter with a diameter of 4840 km. It belongs to the large four moons that were discovered in the year 1610 by the famous astronomer Galileo Galilei. Those four satellites are visible through a field glass. One of those moons is called after Kallisto, a beloved of the godfather Zeus, who corresponds to the Roman Jupiter. In mythology, Kallisto was one of Artemis' huntresses. Zeus turned her into a bear to conceal their affair.

The name pleased me very well and it didn't matter to me that it would be more suitable for a hen. Kallisto seemed to be happy with his name anyway while he was alive.