DweezelJazz Art Blog » Jasmine, African Grey Parrot

Jasmine’s Story

DweezelJazz — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:40:44 +0000

Jazzy holding apple and posing for photo

Jasmine is an african grey parrot. She lived with us for 18 months. We met her in the pet section of a garden center, where she had been for over 6 months. My husband was looking for pots for his cacti. We ended up going to the garden center several times over a time period of about a month. While Tony was looking for pots I wandered into the pet section and saw Jazzy. Every time we went to the center I went to say hello to her and we ended up friends. She loved having her head scratched and whistled after me if I walked away from her cage. It didn’t take long before I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and of course the inevitable happened: we invited her to live with us.

She was scared of almost everything when she first came to live with us. She scratched all the time behind her neck and her feathers were very sparse in that region. She didn’t want any hand contact and absolutely didn’t want to come out of her cage. Gradually over the next weeks, by giving her loads of attention and treating her with a lot of respect, she relaxed. She turned out to be a very brave, incredibly sweet and extremely adventurous, outgoing character with tremendous intelligence.

Jasmine

Living with Jasmine was a real privilege. She taught us much more the meaning of respect and the art of communication. But most of all she showed us how to live each moment for itself, enjoying life to the full (and banana) and how to give a great deal of love. You can read about her antics and adventures in the posts shown below.

Jazzy Antics

Jazzy continued to scratch behind her neck, but she improved greatly during the first 6 months or so that she lived with us. She gained weight, her feathers turned glossy, she became well-muscled from flying around the house, the pink colors in her tummy feathers became brighter and the red in her tail became brilliant.

Jasmine Flying

We lived in an apartment and circumstances around us changed over time. Laundry detergents and fabric softeners have become increasingly perfumed, more antibacterial products are being used everywhere and in higher concentrations. Our apartment shared airflow with at least 8-15 other apartments, and these cleaning products became mixed creating even further toxic substances. Birds are much more sensitive to perfumes, cleaning agents and pollution.

Jazzy was already very compromised when we got her from the garden center, where they admitted using very strong chemicals to clean the other animal’s living quarters. She was placed close to very strong insecticides that were displayed for sale and many of the visitors to the center wear strong perfumes.

When the air quality in our apartment noticeably became worse, Jasmine started to scratch much more frequently. We bought 5 large air filters and a smaller more portable one that could be lifted off the ground. Jasmine improved dramatically when we got these.

During the summer, the problem became even worse as fumes came out of other people’s apartment windows and directly into our apartment. The shared hallway stairs were cleaned three times a week with highly concentrated perfumed antibacterial detergent; the stairwell had no proper ventilation because the windows were kept closed. We wanted to move, but were financially committed to staying where we were at the time.

Jazzy on an outing in her backpack cage

Jazzy and I spent the entire summer up in the Jura foothills. She had a backpack cage and we walked miles and miles last summer so that she would get fresh air as much as possible. As the summer progressed, Jazzy grew worse and worse with scratching, until finally she started to pull out feathers and then eventually create sores on her skin with scratching.

We did all sorts of things to try to help Jasmine. She was taking medication during the last part of summer to help with the irritation. She had a full check-up and blood work and the results showed her to be a very healthy, fit young girl. The vet was quite clear that she was allergic to perfumes and cleaning agents.

We finally managed to find a place that would provide a better environment and we moved in during the last few days of September 2008. By this time it was practically impossible to distract from her scratching and picking, and the only relief we could give her was in the shower. Her skin was raw and extremely sore. She was in a lot of pain and her misery during the last couple of days she was alive prevented her from enjoying life.

It’s a very long rehabilitation for a bird who has picked its feathers and skin to that extent. The standard practice is to give the bird medicine and put a neck collar on so that the bird can’t pick. This is like putting a human in a straight jacket. And if the skin still itches, the torment would remain, even if the bird couldn’t reach those places to scratch. This discomfort would be reasonable in order to get past the feather picking, but unless the source of the problem could also be removed the scratching and feather pulling would simply resume.

Our new residence is a huge improvement in air quality from where we were, but we still connect to other living spaces in a converted farmhouse. There is a laundry room in the basement with washing machines and a dryer. The dryer releases incredibly strong fumes of fabric softener and perfumes from the laundry detergent; unfortunately these come up through our shared vents and our front door opens into a set of outdoor stairs that lead down to the laundry room. As it turns out we couldn’t have provided Jazzy with a safe living space even here.

We considered giving her to someone else, but we don’t know anyone who doesn’t use perfumes and standard cleaning agents. We tried to arrange for her to go to the United States to a friend who we knew would take care of her, but she didn’t have the correct CITES papers, and the U.S. is not accepting birds from our area of France because of the implications of bird flu. Even if we could have arranged a room in isolation with a good environment for Jazzy with someone else – well, Jazzy was all about interaction, that was life to her. She loved people and she loved being with them. To isolate her would have been cruel.

Jazzy and Tony chatting

Enjoying life was what Jazzy was all about, and we couldn’t bear to watch her suffer. When she deteriorated so much that it was clear she was suffering more than she was enjoying, we decided to let her go free. It hurt, and still hurts, more than anything else in life has ever hurt, but now she flies free.

Jazzy

She’s still a very important part of our lives; we talk about her every day, she’s part of our banter, we’re always including snippets of things the way she said them. She still makes us laugh and smile.

I tell her story here so that those who have parrots can perhaps be more aware of possible causes if their parrot displays scratching, feather picking or even loud irritable behavior. Birds are smaller, and therefore much more sensitive than we are to these things, but we too are affected by them, and it’s worth assessing what products are routinely used in the home and the effects they may have on ourselves and those we love.

Jasmine

Jasmine would have been three years old in November. She passed away on October 3rd, 2008. Her life was packed with fun and joy, though she should have lived to be somewhere between 60 to a 100 years old.

Jazzy on top of her cage

She spread a lot of joy to those she met, and she met loads of people during her short life. I hope that her story can be told as much as possible so that it may spread more goodness in a world that really needs it.

Jasmine was, and still is, mascot to DweezelJazz Art.

To read and see loads of photos about her and her adventures, click on the links below:

If you prefer to see all of the above posts on the same page, click the following link. The articles appear on the page in reverse time order, as is usual for blogs:

All of Jasmine’s Adventures (ie. all of the above posts displayed on one page in reverse order)

Song for Jasmine

DweezelJazz — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 07:00:00 +0000

On Friday October 3rd at 16:40 CEST, our little Jasmine left her suffering behind. Although her body has gone, she has not left our lives, so I will not speak of her in the past tense.Jasmine is our African Grey, ‘Psittacus Erithacus’ to give her latin name. Jasmine doesn’t speak latin, she speaks French and English. Her names, to her, are Jasmine, Jazzy-roo, and Jazzy-rooster-roo. Somehow her name just kept getting longer when we called to her, but she knows them all.Shannon, of Chippers Alley, has already penned a beautiful tribute to Jasmine. Thank you Shannon, we couldn’t have put it better. Jasmine loves Shannon as much as she loves us, and always looked forward to her visits. Between visits, Jasmine enjoys talking to Shannon on the phone, and calls to her by name.Jasmine calls ‘Snuggles’ (a.k.a. Dweezeljazz) by name too, often just for the fun of laughing when she gets her reply. The only other person she calls by name is me, but she thinks my name is ‘hell-OOO-ooo!’. It can be difficult to get my attention when I’m engrossed in something, you often need to shout. Jasmine also knows that when Dweezeljazz calls for ‘Snoopers!’, the correct response is ‘uh-huh?’. Oh well, that about sums me up.Shannon and Nat both have a lot of experience at handling birds, so Jasmine enjoys playing ‘gotchas’ and receiving headrubs from them. She also loves having her tummy tickled, as you can see. I haven’t got the hang of that, but I have learned to sing to her. I have lots of little songs for all occasions. They’re all silly and stupid, and the words change from time to time because I forget them, but for all my off-key efforts, Jasmine loves them. I have a little song for the morning, to let her know that it’s time to wake up, so she won’t be startled when I lift the covers from her night-cage.I have a song for when we play ‘flicksies’ in the shower, when I flick water over her while she leans down from the shower-curtain rail to catch the drops.Then there’s the ‘hupsy-daisy’ song for the end of the shower, when she hops over the shower-curtain rings as I draw it back to step out. She has to hop over the rings before I finish the song, and she always wins.Another special song is ‘birdie-birdie bed-time’, when we tuck her in to sleep at night. She always gives us a good-night kiss after that one.The liveliest of all, however, has to be ‘it’s the wEEkend!’. She often dances to that one, and always gets very excited.At other times, any excuse will do to make up a song. In her cage, on her playstation, on my knee, or in a cafe in town, she’s a willing listener. Provided it isn’t too long, vaguely rhymes, and has her names in it somewhere, she loves it. With that many names to choose from, it’s not difficult to come up with something. I’m still singing to her now, and I always will. She put those songs in my heart and that’s where they belong. Thank you, Jazzy-roo.

Our Sweet Jasmine

DweezelJazz — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 07:00:00 +0000

It has been one week now. Our little Jasmine was beginning to suffer too much and we had to let her go. My friend Shannon knew Jasmine well and she has written a beautiful tribute to Jasmine in a way that I cannot find words to do. If you have time please read Shannon’s tribute: Fly Free, Jazzy!.We were unable to provide a clean enough air environment – it was filled with home cleaning products entering our air space from neighboring apartments. She was a healthy, robust girl – but she couldn’t breathe the contaminated air we’re making around us. I’m angry, I’m sad, I could rant about how stupid we human beings are. But at the same time, I feel sorry for all the pain and sorrow that will come to us from our lack of awareness. Most of all, it’s the hollow of grief left from the loss of a very loving being who is no longer physically in our midst – and for a very pointless reason.Jasmine was a vibrant, fun-loving little girl. She had her own mind and knew what she liked and she went at life wholeheartedly, enjoying every moment of it. She spread joy and love to just about everyone she met, and meeting people was the absolute highlight of her life (along with banana, of course).We went to the market last Saturday and she was missed. A little boy in the cafe came running up looking to say hello to her; her friends at the roast chicken stall always enjoyed seeing her each week…She would always listen and look up adoringly as Tony spoke to her, absorbing each word he said.She joined in on any activity…and helped things along in whatever way she thought would be fun…and she loved to play.She asked to go out: for a walk or to go shopping. Every time we would go to the bio store for our weekly shopping, if we occasionally had to leave Jazzy at home, everyone would ask where she was. We haven’t gone this week…we’d rather make do with the food we have left this week than face feeling the pain of not having her with us there.She loved loafing around on her playstation, being silly, having fun, playing……watching to see what new toy configurations we would think up for her to play with next.She loved being mischievous to get our attention, that’s what she wanted most, our attention to play and have fun.She always had loads of fun when we were out, and so did we. And she was ever eager to try new things.She made us laugh so easily, and so often – she spread her joy, that was what she did best.Enthusiasm is also a good word to describe Jazzy. Zest for life.And of course, beauty.Jasmine would have turned three at the beginning of this November, in just a couple of weeks’ time. She already had a huge vocabulary. I’ve been writing down all the things she said. She made up her own sentences and they made sense. She spoke her own mind, she didn’t just copy or imitate, though she did enjoy doing that too, in its place. She had a personality plus.We miss her, always there, always full of cheer. And when we think of her now, we try to hold that cheer and love and joy that she gave us. Hopefully time will help us with our feelings of loss.As she said herself: “Beautiful Jasmine!”

Portrait of a Horse In Egg Tempera

DweezelJazz — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 07:00:00 +0000

On our many walks this summer Jasmine (our African Grey parrot) and I met a very nice horse. At the beginning of summer she was out in a field close to the road and that’s when we met. I took a photo and it resulted in this 12 x 16 ” portrait egg tempera painting.During the heat of the summer the horse literally had a house all to herself so far as I could tell. In this photo she’s standing in the doorway, but could retreat inside to stay cool and away from the flies. Jazzy and I would call and whistle from the road just to say hello as we walked by.A couple of weeks ago, when it got cooler, our friend was back out in the field near the road. She rushed over to say hello and be petted. It was so nice finally to be able to say hello properly. And of course, another photo session was in order.Even Jazzy liked her and was saying hello and chatting. When the horse turned away for a moment Jazzy did her hawk call imperso- nation (for the first time outdoors). Hearing this, the horse jerked up her head and looked round, not suspecting that it could be that little prankster Jasmine.She’s absolutely beautiful, and huge!But even though the horse towers over me, she’s extremely gentle and very sweet. This delicacy and sweetness is so striking that I think of her as ‘Daisy’.

Jasmine Chomping Vegies In The Kitchen

DweezelJazz — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 07:00:00 +0000

The weekend before last Jasmine decided to help herself to the cucumber that was sitting on the counter. She often gets cucumber in her ‘vegie bowl’ in her cage and she likes it very much. But she decided she’d like to chomp right into the whole thing.So then we gave her a large piece of fennel to chew on. She likes fennel very much too and so this was great fun for her.I took a number of shots to show Jazzy holding the fennel in her hand, but every time I took the photo she had put it down again.The photos that came out look almost like Jazzy’s having a yoga stretching session or something.Here she is holding the fennel up.And now she looks like she’s waiting for a bus, just leaning over, but as you can see she has fennel in her beak.Jazzy also loves carrot, she especially likes cooked carrot that’s still slightly crisp to the bite. This however, is raw carrot, which she also gets regularly in her vegie bowl.And now, well, who knows what she was up to… perhaps she was thinking: ‘Anyone fancy some chips?’ (This is a famous line in our family. It’s from the movie “Calendar Girls” – one of the girls during an exercising stretching session says this in perfect timing and everyone immediately abandons the stretching to go get some chips. If you haven’t seen this movie I thoroughly recommend it for a really good laugh and good time – based on a true story.)Oh yes, Jazzy does watch movies and she has seen this one!

Jasmine and Her Continuing Tousle With Air Quality

DweezelJazz — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 07:00:00 +0000

I’m spending much of many of my days up our local mountains carrying Jasmine, our African Grey parrot, in her backpack travel cage. As the temperature increases here during the summer, the air quality in the local environment of our apartment and its surrounds continues to worsen.When we got Jazzy at the local pet store she already frequently scratched herself around her neck, resulting in patches where feathers were removed by her scratching. She improved enormously when she first came to live with us. Since then we moved to another apartment and our environment has become increasingly filled with strongly perfumed cleaning agents, laundry detergents, fabric softeners, aerosol spray products, insecticides, cosmetics and perfumes that are universally used. We’re unable to keep these out of our apartment and even the apartment block grounds smell strongly of a mixture of the many products emanating from people’s apartments.When at home: my eyes sting, skin itches, it’s hard to breathe, and many other things too boring to list here. I watch myself losing a battle to keep ahead of these symptoms. I watch my husband developing increasing ‘allergy’ symptoms when he’s around strongly scented products. Almost everyone we meet claims they have, or someone in their family has, allergies, asthma, headaches, rashes. But most heart-wrenching of all, I watch our little Jasmine, scratching, and since some weeks now, actually pulling out her feathers.When we got Jasmine I had no idea that we would encounter such problems with her, especially since, due to chemical injury as a child, I’m unable to use strong chemical agents and so we have none used or directly present in our home. It turns out that she has become the ‘canary’ in our apartment ‘coal mine’.She still sings, chats, laughs, plays and is happy, but her skin is irritated. When I take her out to the fresh air in the mountains all this scratching and fussing stops. But if we meet someone who smells of fabric softener in their clothes, or who is wearing perfume, or uses strongly scented cosmetics, she immediately starts scratching furiously.We’re unable to move from where we live right now. We’ve bought more large, powerful air filters designed to remove chemicals from the air. They certainly help, and without them Jasmine cries, screeches in discomfort, and becomes worse with the scratching and even becomes lethargic. Around the apartment, where Jasmine goes, there go the filters with her. In March we added a second air filter and we have both filters running continuously in whatever room Jasmine is in. Last week we added two more and this week we’ll be receiving another one.These air filters are helping but unfortunately they’re not able to deal with the concentrations that are coming into our living space. It seems that with each passing month stronger concentrations and larger amounts are being used. Floor polish is used on the apartment block hallway floors two to three times a week. There is no ventilation in the stairwells and so this brings fumes from the polish into our home for many hours. The concentration of fabric softeners and scent used in laundry products makes the laundry drying on people’s balconies incredibly strong. These two factors alone have a big effect on Jasmine.If I knew someone who could take care of Jasmine in a relatively toxin-free environment I would gladly give her to them in order to keep her well and safe. I’ve discovered that the papers we were given when we bought her do not correspond to her identity given on her leg band, so we don’t have her papers of origin. We’re currently looking into this, but without papers of origin it’s not possible to take an African Grey out of the country, which means I can’t send her to someone I know who could take care of her in a good environment.Even when Jazzy is uncomfortable she sings and gives kisses and lots of love and is a very good sport. When she complains by being noisy, if I can change something to improve the air conditions she invariably stops making noise and resumes playing normally very soon after.Birds always try instinctively to show a good face even if they don’t feel well because a flock will shun a bird that is unwell. This is why a bird can appear well and then seemingly all of a sudden become very unwell and even die.It’s devastating to witness the havoc we’re creating on our planet. My own suffering or that of other humans is so much easier to accept: we’re creating it after all, and what we get to some extent, just by being a part of society, we are a part of reaping in some way. But innocent creatures such as birds, frogs, bees, fish, turtles,…. They suffer more than we do (at least so far), without having contributed to this destruction.Living, watching this incredibly beautiful, vital and brave creature who lives with us, pull out one feather after another in irritated distress, slipping slowly, but gradually each day, as a result of our ignorant actions is enough to break a heart.So I continue to take Jazzy to spend as much of our days in fresh air as I can manage until we’re able to move somewhere more independent of others’ personal use of the myriad products available today.This means that I have much less energy and time available to write blog posts and to paint. There are still many beautiful sights and lovely days and moments in our lives. But I sure hope that we all in society can find a way to live that allows human kind and the earth to thrive into the future.Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read this blog. It’s very rewarding and is a fun experience thanks to you. Please forgive the more emotional nature of this post; I’ve tried hard in the past to present data uncluttered by personal emotion in previous posts about toxic chemicals in our society. But the heartache of watching a beloved and innocent parrot suffer, pushes me to plead with anyone who can relate to what we’re doing to ourselves and our loved ones.We’re playing with a very dangerous path into the future, and if individuals do not educate themselves and wake up to these dangers soon, we will be driven by a consumer capitalist economy to destruction, taking all that we value down with us. It’s a huge problem, one bigger than I can possibly understand and one which I know that I’m equally a part of the problem.But one thing is for sure: if we could each, as individuals, stop buying these products that are creating these toxic effects it would slow down their use and their production and this would at least be a start to helping improve our and our planet’s future.