After it has come to two tragic cases of death at the very end of 2001 that made my poor Wega suddenly become very lonely, I was frightened that she would die from grief like Kallisto did shortly before. A few months before those fatalities, Wega had a hot flirt with one of thefeathered vacationers. The owner of the flock that spent some time in my bird room in the summer of '01 wanted to give away Wega's favourite male to anyone else because he was missing out a hen in his home. So she decided to bring the charming male budgie to my home.

On the third of January in 2002, Rudi moved away from his old flock right into my bird room. He instantly felt at home because he knew my birds from the last vacations of his former owners. Well, in fact he knew all of my budgies except for one newly arrived female, which quickly turned out to be a problem for the lonesome Wega...

Even though Rudi was designated to be the new mate of Wega, he heavily fell in love with the above-mentioned newcomer within less than 24 hours after his arrival. It must have been love at first sight with Larissa, because he had never seen her before in his life. The twosome caressed each other quite often and I loved to watch them being that tender and happy when Larissa was still alive.

But to be honest, it looked funny when they perched next to each other. Larissa was an English Budgie and much taller than her delicate lover Rudi. He didn't mind that and always looked glad to have her in his life. Unfortunately, Larissa died a few months later.

Since Rudi was a seducer like Casanova used to be, he built himself a little harem. Besides being together with his wife Rana he sometimes flirted with Vivian, Io and Dione - he definitively had that special something. Each of my flock's hens was mad about him! And he was mad about women - I often called him a feathered womanizer. During his last months his "main wife" was Maia, he loved her very much and often caressed her (see photo on the right).

From August to November 2002, he turned away from his two wives Rana and Larissa (she was still alive then). When the adorable budgie lady Eule moved into my bird room, he fell in love with her and didn't even notice the other hens. The couple was inseparable and he cared for his beloved sweetheart when she became very ill in September 2002. This illness could not be cured for weeks, and Rudi never moved from Eule's side, which surely made her suffer less. On 11/08/02, Eule unfortunately passed away. But the seducer wasn't lonely at all after her death since there were all the other females who still adored him.

At the end of October 2004 Rudi became very sleepy and silent. A few weeks later he started to vomit after he had eaten. I tried to find out what was torturing him and we did several tests. Finally in the beginning of 2005 we found out that Rudi suffered from an infection of his crop caused by a virus which occurs not very often. There is no medicine one can give a bird in this situation. So I gave him food supplements and other stuff to give him strength, but it didn't work. Unfortunately Rudi died on the 10th of January 2005. I will miss him as much as all the hens of my flock who were shocked by his death.

Rudi's colour mutation is called normal green and he looked like the wild budgies from Australia. He was born on the 06/06/1999. I didn't rename him after he arrived in my bird room because he was used to the name Rudi for many years and I didn't want to confuse him.