This article is reprinted from The Pet Bird Report with permission from the author.

An angel in pink...that’s what she was. She brought joy to our hearts, laughter to our home, and forever changed how we would view our relationship with pet birds. Inca touched us with a love and trust that we will forever cherish, and taught us that even moments of tragedy and despair can have an unexpected and joyous outcome. Many opinions have been expressed regarding the pet potential of Major Mitchell’s (Leadbeaters) Cockatoos. There seems to be a wide consensus that they do not possess some of the traits which attract so many of us to these very special creatures. I have read statements describing them as "nervous and flighty", "not as intelligent" and "not as affectionate" as some other Cockatoos, making them less desirable as pets. Perhaps our little angel was an exception to the rule. If that is the case, then we were truly blessed to be chosen by fate as the caretakers for this remarkable bird. This is how Inca touched our lives...

I had been searching for a mature female Major Mitchell’s for a friend who had a male of breeding age. Even in their native Australia these beautiful Cockatoos are fairly rare in captivity and the trapping of wild birds is now prohibited. After many phone calls I was referred to a breeder in South Australia who had a female whose mate had died soon after a chick had successfully hatched. The necropsy showed nothing unusual and both the mother and baby were doing well. The owner had no intention of trying to find a suitable mate for the hen and was delighted to find someone interested in purchasing her.

When arrangements were made for shipping the bird to Cairns, I was asked if we would like to have the baby. It seems that after the male died, the female would no longer feed the chick regularly, and the owner had been bringing the young bird into the house 2-3 times a day to spoon feed it, then returning it to the aviary. It was now 14 weeks old and although not aggressive could certainly not be considered "hand-raised".

At that time, we had one young bonded pair of Major Mitchell’s, but no plans to add any others to our breeding stock. After speaking at length with the owner, it became apparent that he truly had no interest in this baby and we agreed to purchase it for $300 AUD. My intention was to have the young bird checked by our avian vet, work with it until it was properly weaned and socialized, then place it in a good home.

When the birds arrived at the airport, they both seemed highly stressed by the ordeal, which involved a 2-hour drive to the Adelaide airport, flying to Sydney, a lengthy layover, and then the flight to northern Australia. We immediately took the female to our friend, then drove the final 45 minutes home with the beautiful pink baby loudly hissing in the carrier. That was when I decided to call her Inca. Watching her display with wings stretched and her magnificent crest of yellow and brilliant orange reminded me of drawings of ancient Inca Indians.

Once home, we took her out and immediately discovered that she was covered with lice. After ridding her of those unwelcome intruders, we checked beak, toes, eyes, nose, etc. and put her in a temporary cage to undergo quarantine.

She was very leery, watching our every move and hissing when we offered food and water. I covered her cage early that night knowing she was completely exhausted and needed sleep more than anything at that stage.

The next morning she still wasn’t eating well, so we decided to make an appointment with our veterinarian as soon as possible. Several times during the day I would open the door to her cage, talking softly and encouraging her to come out. Although she would not, the hissing finally stopped and she seemed to become more curious about her new surroundings. Late that afternoon, we heard a scream and found that she had part of her right wing caught between the bars of the cage. She was attempting to pull away from the side of the cage, but the last two primary feathers on the outside tip of the wing were hung on the wire.

My husband opened the door, reached inside and gently lifted her body, thus freeing the wing. She climbed to her perch and we noticed that the right wing was drooping slightly. Needless to say, we were very concerned. We watched her carefully throughout the afternoon and evening and were relieved to see that she could once again pull the wing to its normal position. After dinner, I decided to take Inca out of the cage to get a better look at the wing. I was delighted when she allowed me to pick her up by gently wrapping a towel over her back and under her torso. As I sat her on the floor beside her cage she lifted her wings, raised her crest and let out a mighty screech s she flapped across the floor and attempted to hide behind a potted plant.

My husband picked up the young bird and handed her to me. As I placed Inca in my lap, I felt a warm, sticky substance under her wing. My husband said I started screaming, "Oh my God, she’s bleeding!". I only remember that the next several hours were like living in a nightmare. We lifted her wing to see where the blood was coming from. At the juncture of the wing and the body, blood spurted from a hole and a bone protruded from within the body cavity. My husband grabbed the towel, wrapped Inca and began gently applying pressure to the wound, holding her close to his chest. I rushed to the telephone and called our vet, and to our relief he was still in his office at 7:30 p.m. All I had to say was that we had a bird emergency and he said to bring her in immediately. The thirty minute drive down the winding, twisting 2-lane mountain road took me twenty minutes. Inca sat quietly in the dark in my husbands lap while he stroked her face and spoke gently, assuring her that she was going to be okay. There was no screaming, no thrashing, indeed no movement of any kind. Just two huge dark eyes watching his face as if questioning "why". The vet quickly examined her and said that he would have perform emergency surgery immediately. We wanted to wait until she recovered from the anesthesia, but I had babies at home to feed and the doctor had no idea how long the surgery would take. We drove home in silence, knowing that Inca was in very serious condition having lost a lot of blood, her tiny body already in a state of stress from the previous days journey. In those quiet moments of prayer I knew that if Inca survived I would never be able to part with her.

After what seemed like an eternity, the phone rang one and a half hours later. The vet informed us that he had inserted a steel pin at the break and stitched up the wound. Although she was in a very weakened state, he felt that if she made it through the night, Inca had a good chance of full recovery. We arrived back at the office the next morning at 8:00 a.m. sharp and were shown into the operating room. Inca was sitting on a perch in the corner of a small cage beside a heat lamp. What a pitiful sight she was...still dirty from being confined in the small shipping container, her feathers stained with blood from the trauma of the night before, and a look on her face that said, "what next?"

The doctor showed us the X-ray of the wing and we were surprised to find that the compound break was up very high up on the wing, nearly inside the body cavity. We wondered if the wing had been broken when caught on the cage, but were doubtful because the wing had not twisted (that we had seen), and my husband had been able to free Inca very quickly. The only other two explanations were that the injury had occurred when she was being caught and boxed early the morning of shipment, or while in the small box during transit. We’ll never know the answer.

With the frightened baby Major Mitchell’s now snuggled in a small towel lined cardboard box, we began the drive home. We kept Inca confined in the box and noticed that the she slept through the remainder of the day. At 4:00 p.m., we gave her an injection of antibiotics provided by the vet, and I was able to get her to eat a bit of formula from a spoon. She looked so weak and helpless and I cried softly while holding her, wondering if she was going to make it.

I had my answer at daybreak the next morning. We awoke and found that Inca was wide awake. Once again I fed her a bit of formula and then offered her a dish of sprouted seeds. Although she picked at the sprouts through the morning, she still appeared exhausted and I kept her box partly covered so she could continue to rest. At midday when I reached into the box to check on Inca I was suddenly surprised. Jumping up, I began shouting to my husband, "She bit me! She bit me hard!" I was ecstatic that this precious baby bird was obviously feeling better. That the first and only time Inca ever bit either of us.

I warmed a bit of formula, and as the spoon approached her mouth, Inca leaned her head back, reached out for the food and began bobbing her head up and down...our injured baby was really hungry. After eating a few bites, she allowed me to hold her and scratch her face for several minutes before returning her to her temporary cardboard home. An hour later, I glanced in and found her tossing some fresh veggies from one end of the box to the other. She was eating (or at least playing).

That afternoon, after receiving her next injection, Inca ate a bit more formula. After all my other babies had been fed and safely tucked-in for "night-night", I once again reached in to gently pick up my young charge, and we began what was to become a nightly ritual for the two of us over the next few years. As I clutched this baby to my chest and leaned back in the recliner, she reached up with her beak and gently pulled on my bottom lip...Inca then relaxed, snuggled her head against my neck and was fast asleep in two minutes. My husband covered us with a blanket and the two of us slept in the chair without moving for over an hour.

The next morning, just before daybreak I was awakened by the sound of Inca scraping her beak against the side of the box which now "lived" right next to our bed.

I leaned over and pulled her up onto the bed with me. She stretched her neck, and after "kissing" my lower lip began whimpering for food. After eating a few bites of formula, she crawled up my arm, then up to my chest, and began reaching for my face. As I lowered my head our little angel, ever so gently, began preening my eyelashes.

When returned to her box, Inca started eating soaked seed immediately. Though still weak, it appeared that our new bird was finally well on the road to recovery. We took the first photographs of Inca that morning...she really looked pathetic. Her tail and stomach were still stained due to the long stay in the shipping box, her entire right side stained red with blood and disinfectant as a result of the operation, and every feather on her tiny body looked out of place. But underneath all of that disarray lay a marvelous creature with a strong will to survive.

When Inca would look up at us with her bright shining eyes, tilt her head slightly to one side, then give a very low "gurgle" while reaching up to preen our faces, we could feel the love and intelligence radiating from that tiny bird...and we somehow knew that she was thanking us for helping her survive the pain.

As the weeks progressed, so did Inca’s healing process and her personality. When the time came to remove the pin from her wing and we went into the Dr’s. office, we were all amazed when, instead of panicking, Inca climbed up the vets arm and began preening his face. From that day on, any time we took her for a drive in the car and were close to his office, we had to take Inca in for a visit with "Dr."...she had an open invitation. Indeed, Inca would happily go to anyone who approached her in a warm, gentle manner.

Inca was a wonderful addition to our family, but never bonded to any of our other pet Cockatoos...she was "Mum’s" special buddy. The memories of the time she spent with us are too special for words. Each day was a joyous event for Inca, and she lived life to the fullest, perhaps because it had nearly been snatched from her at such an early age.

She began each morning by coming out of her sleeping cage, next to our bed, and climbing under the covers for a cuddle with "Mum". During the day, she would spend part of her time in her "day" cage in the bird room with her feathered brothers and sisters and part of the time cuddling and playing with us. No matter if I was feeding baby birds, preparing human or bird meals, reading, talking on the phone or watching TV, Inca seemed perfectly content just to be with me. She would sit on the arm of my easy chair "demanding" that I preen her majestic crest...if I tried to rest my hand, Inca would reach out with her beak, lift my hand, and place her head under my fingers looking up at me with that beautiful smiling face...how could I say no?

We placed an old sheet on the living room floor which Inca accepted as her play arena. She had a wicker basket full of toys and would sit on the edge with her head cocked, looking in until something "special" caught her eye. She would climb down into the basket to retrieve the treasure, then crawl back up to perch once again on the basket while inspecting and destroying the item at hand.

Occasionally while playing Inca would get totally out of control (overloaded). For no apparent reason she would raise her crest, spread her wings, and begin running in tight circles like a dog chasing its tail. I have to describe our house in order for you to visualize and fully appreciate this behavior. In northern Australia, due to the tropical climate, doors were always open during the day and there were no screens. Inca would begin "circling", then like a top spinning she would begin moving laterally as well. On several occasions, the spinning was so rapid that before she (or we) knew what had happened, she was out the door onto the verandah, then off the verandah and onto the ground, where she would suddenly stop, raise her head, and look around as if to say, "What happened?".

One evening both my husband and I were in the kitchen preparing dinner and Inca was playing in the living room. Although she could see us, I suppose she felt we weren't close enough to suit her. She climbed up the three steps and walked purposely over to where we were standing. I looked at her and said, "Inca, I can’t pick you up right now, my hands are dirty. And Dad is cooking something on the stove." I’ll never forget the puzzled look on her face. She then walked over to the corner where the cabinets join and stood with her face pushed against the wood like a child in school who has been told to go "stand in the corner". After a couple of minutes, she pulled one foot up and closed her eyes. From that point on, she did that anytime we were both in the kitchen and she wanted our attention.

Inca’s bedtime was 7:00 p.m. on the dot, summer and winter. This was her decision. She always had dinner with us around 6:00, and by 6:30 would begin beak scraping, while snuggled up against either my husband or myself on the couch. She would be quite insulted if for some reason we were not watching the clock closely enough, and at precisely 7:00 p.m. would crawl up the six steps leading to our bedroom. There she would sit on the floor by the door and wait until one of us would pick up her, apologizing profusely for being such "negligent" parents, and tuck her in safe and sound for night-night.

Even though we had been raising Australian cockatoos for five years when Inca came into our lives, we were (and are) continually amazed at their wisdom, the depth of their feelings and their acceptance of humans. Inca was a new chapter to us, and one that taught us the importance, indeed the necessity, of interacting positively with natures rare and special creatures. If we are willing to accept new challenges and open our lives and hearts to new experiences...then we might just be touched by an angel.