"What is it?" I gasped, wondering if one of the birds had died.

"There's been an accident," Bruce told me. "Rhea's lower beak is gone."

I gasped, horrified. "What? Is she all right?" I managed.

"For now. Look." I didn't want to, but I forced myself, my mouth dry. There was no blood, but Rhea's lower mandible had been completely severed, back to the skull. She was alert but puzzled, her exposed tongue feeling around for something that was no longer there.

We don't really know what happened because no one saw it. Bruce had gone to the post office but, unable to catch the three young lovebirds, he had left them out unsupervised.

He was only gone a half an hour, but when he came back Rhea, who was sitting on a nest inside a locked cage, had lost her lower beak. We can only surmise what happened; the youngsters converged on Rhea and bit at her through the cage, she fought back, and lost her beak. We found it on the bottom of the cage.

The next day Bruce took her to the vet, who was amazed that she had survived the attack. She should have gone into shock and died, he told us. As it was, there was nothing he could do.

Rhea was in good condition, but her long-term chances of survival were not favorable - she would have a hard time drinking without a lower beak. On the other hand, she still had her upper beak and would be able to manoeuvre food between it and her tongue. But there was no chance the beak would ever grow back, as there wasn't enough bone left. We would have to feed her by hand for the rest of her life.

The next few days Rhea spent quietly in her nest, subdued and in pain. The eggs never hatched and eventually we threw them away.

So began one of the most special relationships ever to develop between bird and human. It was based on trial and error mingled with sheer determination, on her part as well as ours.

We started by handfeeding her twice a day with the same baby formula and syringe we had used for the lovebirds. The syringe was too big so we replaced it with a smaller one, but the whole process was time consuming and messy.

First, we had to catch her, and then we had to get her to eat in a way totally unnatural to her. At first we held her on her back and tried to inject the food directly into her crop as we had done with the lovebird chicks. That didn't work. Then we tried letting her sit upright and taking the food into her mouth herself. That worked much better, but the consistency had to be just right or she couldn't eat.

After weeks of muss and fuss, however, we settled into a rhythm, and together we got so good that eventually not one drop was wasted.

Rhea flourished. By now we had another male, Capooch, but when we first put them together she tried to kill him, beakless as she was. She was the first one out to play when we opened the flight, the first to jump in the bath, the queen of the roost. Everyone deferred to her. She led and the rest followed.

Broccoli was her favorite food - her little tongue worked the florets easily - but she also devoured rapini flowers, Russian kale, and dandelion. Every morning I chopped up carrots and cabbage and baby bok choy and took delight in seeing my birds healthy and happy. I took special delight in handling Rhea, who now gave only a token resistance when I reached into her cage at mealtime.

Then one day the next spring, Rhea and Capooch were no longer fighting. Instead, to my utter delight, he was feeding her, and she was twittering away, happily encouraging him. Soon they were both picking up strings and looking for a nesting spot. I boiled some burlap and laid it around the cage and before I knew it, the nest was built.

Rhea laid four eggs and settled down contentedly to brood. Only two of the eggs were fertile, but both hatched. Rhea and Capooch were excellent parents. He fed her and they took turns feeding the chicks, while Bruce or I handfed her twice a day.

Then another miracle occurred, a sign of the trust that had grown between us. When Capooch was feeding Rhea in the nest, I had noticed that her wings vibrated as a sign of encouragement to him. One day when I was feeding her she did the same to me. From that day on, her wings vibrated regularly every time I fed her or watered her. I was her mate as much as was Capooch, a third partner involved in raising two precious chicks.

Our first clutch fledged, and Rhea and Capooch started nestbuilding again, but none of the second clutch were fertile. Then towards the middle of June Rhea started yet another nest. I was unsure if I should let her nest again, but she and Capooch had been such excellent parents I let them go ahead. This time they had three hatchlings.

One died in infancy, but the older two survived. Again, Rhea allowed me to pick her up from her nest without a fuss, and her wings quivered whenever I fed her or gave her water. Again I felt the strange thrill of bonding, of being Rhea's lifeline, nurturer to both her and our chicks.

I kissed the back of her head and gently placed her back with her babes, and she looked at me confidently with her bright black eyes. When the chicks fledged, we were all proud, and when they wobbled through the soak seed and pecked at their first food, we were happy. Their first bath was a delight, as was their first free flight through the house.

Rhea's molt started late and was very heavy, but she had had a terrible moult the year before too. I was confident she would be all right. She remained her usual feisty self, the unchallenged queen of the bird room. But she no longer flew from Bruce and I, but allowed us to catch her and hold her, rub the back of her head with our noses and tell her we loved her. We were her family and she ours. From the start, her children landed on our heads and took food from our hands.

But in November everything changed. One day I noticed Rhea was fluffed up. A few days later I heard clicking as she breathed. We took her to our avian vet, who prescribed antibiotics for a respiratory infection. He complimented her on her feathers, which were soft and well-groomed, surprising in a bird with no beak, he said.

Rhea's breathing seemed to clear up with the antibiotics, but one day soon after we noticed her left wing drooping. Bruce examined her and found a swelling at the base of the primary feathers. We thought she had somehow injured herself and took her to the vet again. He found a cyst and sent her home, no treatment necessary. But Rhea was a different bird. She never really regained her spunk and gradually got worse.

I remember so well the last time she flew. I had just given her breakfast and let her hop off my hand as usual. But instead of soaring across the room, she glided down to the ground and hopped around the floor, confused and perplexed.

Soon afterward her head began to swell, pushing out one eye until it and the surrounding tissue bulged horribly. There was another round of antibiotics (both intravenous and oral), but no positive diagnosis and no improvement.

Our last trip to the vet gave us three alternatives - a fourth round of antibiotics, surgery to remove the eye, or a period of waiting and seeing. The vet said frankly he didn't know what was wrong and that surgery might kill her.

Anguished and uncertain, we decided to wait and see. Rhea didn't seem to be in pain, just blind in one eye, wobbly, and permanently grounded. But she never gave up - she ate hungrily, took her daily bath and settled on a perch near the bottom of the cage. Bruce nursed her like a mother, washing out her bad eye, as I couldn't, and cooing over her as though she were a sick child.

Then one day we found blood all over the perch. It had come from her exposed tongue, which was dry and cracked. Bruce cleaned her off and we fed her, but she whimpered in pain. When I put her back in the cage she fell on her back and couldn't turn over. I quickly picked her up but she was wobbly and couldn't maintain her balance.

That night when I fed her she was too weak to raise her head. With a breaking heart, I held her up to the flight to say good-bye, and laid her gently in her cage, fully expecting to find her gone the next morning.

But my brave Rhea would not give up - the following morning she was up on her perch, unsteady, but hungrily eating the soft food I had left in her cup.

She hung on for three and a half more weeks, and I began to hope she would get better. The cyst on her wing had shrunk, so maybe the tumor in her head would go away too. She took baths - her absolutely favorite activity - and had a hearty appetite. She always looked up with her bright black eye whenever she heard her name.

Her balance was still off, though. She could barely stand on the perch and sometimes fell off. But we were both stubborn, and refused to give up. I kept our feeding schedule morning and evening and even came home at lunch to check on her.

Then one day she was worse. She seemed to have trouble swallowing, and the next day she could hardly swallow at all. Bruce and I coaxed some liquid and food into her little mouth, but not much made it into her.

I went out for a time and when I got back Bruce looked so sad I thought she was already gone. He had been sitting there holding her in his hand the whole time. I took her then and, although her breathing was still rapid, we tried to get more food into her. She did take a little, and some water. We held her, talked to her, kissed her and cried, and she opened her one good eye once or twice, letting us know she knew we were there, loving her as best we could. Exhausted, I finally went to bed.

The next morning Bruce woke me with the sad news. My courageous little hen had finally died. We laid Rhea out so her family could see her. They hopped over one at a time until all seven were ringed about her, and then one by one they approached her, some tugging at her chest and others nudging at her feet, Capooch picking gently at her head. They seemed to be trying to wake her.

Her youngster Puffdaddy was the most forlorn - he kept coming back and pushing against her and when we finally took her away he kept flying to her little hospital cage looking for her.

I knew I would always miss her, but I was glad she was finally out of pain. She had been so sick for so long, but I loved her dearly; my Rhea, the beakless wonder who had survived the odds, raised four chicks and wormed her way so deeply into my heart.

Rhea, survived by Capooch, Marilyn the boy and Chaco (clutch one), and Puffdaddy and Swinger (clutch two). She was two years ten months old, and had been beakless for one year seven months. She was indomitable every day of her life.

Sunny and Oboe continue to play around but have never to this day produced a clutch of eggs. As for Rhea's children? Today, Marilyn the boy and Chaco were hopping around on Bruce's back while he napped on the couch. A while later, Swinger landed on my head and pulled at a strand of my hair, as she has been doing all spring.

Rhea is here, echoed in her offspring, but I still look for her bright black eyes, her odd beakless mouth, the exuberant waterfall of her bath, her soft shiny feathers, her courageous heart. She was unique, and I'll love her always.

by Ronna Gooley
Copyright © Mar 2002.
All rights reserved.