After Paula's husband Mogli had deceased in April 2001 due to cancer, her former owner decided to give the widowed and single budgie lady into a new home where other budgies live. Since some weeks before that my flock had become smaller by the death of Puck, there was a "vacant position" for Paula in my bird room. On 04/26/01 the hen who was about four years old at that time arrived here.

At first she acted in a reserved way what fundamentally changed after a few weeks. Paula started to behave headstrong and sometimes even a little bit touchy. Despite of this bulky behavior she won Orion's heart. Beside her he used to have another wife, Rhea. From May '01 on, Orion was mated with both, Rhea and Paula. This complicated relationship seemed to please the birds, particularly since Paula extremely loved her liberty exactly like Orion's other wife. If Paula wanted some time for herself - Orion occasionally is a very importunate cock - she striked him furiously with her beak until he turned away. He used to caress Rhea then and after a while she sent him away like Paula did before. In most cases Paula then felt a great desire on tenderness and let him turn to her again.

Paula's dearest hobby was feeding on sprouted grains and throwing them away (yes, I love my vacuum cleaner...). Every bird who wanted to chase her away from the food dish was in a bad position. The budgie lady was a brave and strong fighter who vehemently defended her favourite delicacy against any other hungry beak.

Identifying Paula's colour mutation was not easy. Her predominant colour was white with a slight touch of blue on breast and belly as you can see in the picture below. Her eyes were black with a white iris ring. She was a special kind of spangle budgie called Double Factor Spangle (DFS).

In the beginning of February of 2002, Paula became seriously ill. Within a few days, a second bird of my flock, Wega, showed the same symptoms. My vet and me, we fought for the lives of my hens and after I started treating them with the strong medicine, Paula first seemed to recover well. On 02/28/02, I found her nearly without conscience and she was lying on the floor being to weak to perch on a twig. I immediately brought her to my vet who told me that she couldn't be saved. My heart was bleeding when I decided to free her from her pain. He put her to sleep and my wonderful, charming and absolutely lovely Paula passed away in a quiet and peaceful way. I will never forget this gorgeous budgie lady!