Some time ago, the on the left pictured lively budgie joined my flock. Actually he was a permanent resident in my bird room because his former keeper, a young lady, was not able to give him a good home at that time. In November 1999, Kiki and his friend Kleiner (what means "little one"), who died in March 2000, arrived here.

Kiki became more than 17 years old, he hatched from his egg on April 21. 1985. Anke, his actual owner, got Kiki from a neighbor after his feathered companion has deceased and the neighbor didn't want to get a new friend for Kiki. The colour mutation of the beautiful bird is called normal sky blue.

Due to a collision with a glass door, Kiki's upper mandible broke into pieces. But it used to look worse than it was. The brave budgie got along with his handicap quite well for many years. Unfortunately, also one of his toes remained stiff after a torn ligament. On the one hand, one could call Kiki a nebbish. But on the other hand, he always feelt good and was healthy when he lived in my bird room - and he was quite old then. So I think he was a lucky guy!

Despite his high age, Kiki managed to conquer the heart of my youngest hen. From March '00 to July '01, he was firmly paired with the cute little Rana. Sometimes their everyday life wasn't harmonious at all. When Rana wanted to be crawled, she used to beat him up because he didn't do her right. In most cases, he could not follow her requests due to his broken upper mandible. In July 2001, their turbulent relationship was terminated by the occurrence of a new hen in the bird room. Kiki fell in love helter-skelter with the vacationist Elli who at that time was more than ten years old and incapable of flight because of an illness. Within a few days, the two became a loving couple. Due to his senil decay, Kiki couldn't fly anymore, so he didn't move from Elli's side. Elli's owner and I weren't able to separate the lucky "oldies". Therefore, we decided that Elli should remain in my bird room. Her friend Toni went back home and was accompanied by my budgie Herkules who had fallen in love with the fair Toni. In fact, we did that "exchange" for giving a good future together to both couples.

Regrettably, Elli and Kiki couldn't enjoy their second springtime for very long. On August 20. 2001, Elli died because of her serious illness. Kiki didn't stay single after his affair with Elli. He remembered his former feelings for his dynamic young mate Rana and joined her again - for some months at least. When young Rudi moved into my bird room in January 2002, Rana joined him and left Kiki.

But Kiki didn't remain alone. He soon became a very close friend of Jupiter who was also incapable of flight. They did a lot of crazy things in my bird room and enjoyed life all day long. I will never forget Kiki's lovely character and his joy in biting my shoes when I walked through the bird room.

Meaning of the name
Since Kiki was a guest bird, he didn't carry an astronomical name like my other budgies do.