Orion was a member of my flock since January the third in 1998. When he arrived, he was scarcely four months old. His reverse plumage marking is called spangle. This colour mutation has become very popular in Germany within the last few years. Orion's belly was sky blue and the beautiful wings seem to be painted by an artist. You could hear Orion singing the whole day when he was younger and healthy. I guess he wanted to tell everyone about his joy of living he once had. The best place to be while he was singing seemed to be right beside his close friend Jupiter. It's sad to say that these happy times are over, life has become harder for poor Orion since he was disabled during the last weeks of his life. In former times he was more self-confident, more active, an almost hectic livewire who hurried through the entire bird room. Regrettably, all this changed due to a dramatic incident that signed his further fate.

In the beginning of '99 Orion convinced his queen of hearts Rhea of his qualities as a budgie man. The couple tenderly smooched all day long. But Rhea was kind of selfish sometimes and wanted to be on her own. Orion decided that one wife is no wife - especially if the first wife behaves that moody as Rhea did. Shortly after her arrival in my bird room, Orion started to woo the handsome hen Paula who liked him from the first moment on. There is one trait that described both of his wives: touchy.

Sometimes I asked myself whether Orion secretly was a masochist, because it was obviously great fun for him to be thrashed by his two female tyrants. After Rheas death - the photo below on the right shows him with his deceased wife - only Paula was left as his mate. Unfortunately, Paula followed Rhea to the other side of the rainbow bridge a few months later. She became seriously ill by the end of February 2002 and I decided to let her be put to sleep after I saw her suffer very badly. Orion didn't remain single for long. A few days after Paula's death he courted Io and the two quickly became a loving couple and stayed together nearly until the end.

On 02/25/2003, Orion became a victim of an attack he didn't provoke in any way since he was sleeping. His conspecific Rudi was angry about the fact that he had to go into the cage in the late evening. When he was inside, he was full of anger and attacked the first budgie who was in reach: Orion. His right hip was luxated during this attack, so the poor victim remained unable to stand on his right leg for the rest of his regrettably short life. From this incident on, Orion behaved calmly and inconspicuously, those people who knew him as he used to be hardly recognized him then. Even though he was an unlucky fellow, he didn't lose his joy of living. Orion arranged himself with his physical handicap and I tried to help him doing so as good as I could by offering resting platforms and other things that made his life easier. On the sixth of May in 2003, he was attacked a second time by a flock member - I guess it happened while they were playing roughly. Orion got seriously hurt inside his body, so I decided to free him from suffering and my vet put the poor guy to sleep the same day.

Meaning of the name
One of the most remarkable winter constellations is Orion. In the Greek mythology he was the beautiful son of Poseidon. Orion earned his pay as a hunter. He was promised to Merope whom he really loved. Unfortunately the story ended sadly and Orion was killed by Apollo.