We have some heartbreaking news... 💔

Hey patrons,

I really wish I had it in me to record a video explaining everything to you, but I just don't and I apologize for that... so it'll be quite a bit of text coming your way...

Our beloved project bird Bluee the parrotlet, has passed away. Luckily, I was the one to find him before Capri came home that day. I actually went in to love on him for a little bit before she got home because we all know how she hogged him... and he was lying on the bottom of the cage near his food dishes.

I immediately prepared him and sent him off to WSU for a necropsy as there were no obvious signs of cause of death. We knew when adopting him that he wouldn't have a long life, and even at his checkup they reminded us of this fact but I don't think we predicted how short his time was with us either. To put a timestamp on his time with us, we picked him up in July of 2022.

Many of the videos you are all enjoying of him on a weekly basis over on BirdTricks Kids were recorded during the summer and fall of having him with us. He had so many adventures with us immediately that we didn't want to miss a moment.

And he was such a good traveler!

So a note to that, those videos will still be coming out every Saturday on the BirdTricks Kids channel, and please don't stop watching them and sharing them. Hopefully you can still watch them with a smile and know that you are supporting Capri's channel. We will eventually let people know on that channel and more publicly at some point, but for now having those videos scheduled is a blessing because there is no rush...

I'm sure you all can assume how utterly devastated, heart broken, sad, shocked... just riddled with sadness Capri is. This was the exact reason she adopted him, was because she knew he didn't have long to live and she wanted his last months (what we thought would be years) of life to be the very best they could be.

We used to joke that Bluee just wanted Capri to be sick all the time because on sick days she would stay home and cuddle with him allllll day and if she simply left the room to get a snack he would be calling after her. We would all give him words and yell at her like, "hey, get back here and cuddle me! you can't leave me for this many seconds at a time after that much love! get in here!!" We loved how much he loved being and feeling loved. Every morning she would spend over an hour just cuddling him in her bed. He was so content just with her.

As some of you know, we opened up our first 501(c)3 non-profit called Project Parrots. We are in the very early stages (only got a bank account for it a few days ago) but it finally had its first expenses and that was paying for Bluee's necropsy and cremation. If anyone would like to sponsor these expenses, please send the funds using this link. If you want to cover just part of it, here is the breakdown of his necropsy and cremation expenses (we did have him cremated so that Capri can spread his ashes when she's ready, and we also requested his leg band be sent to us so if you guys have any ideas for how to best use it, I'm all ears.)

Necropsy Histopathology $75

Avian Necropsy $42

UPS Next Day Shipping $16

Cremation $117.19

Any donations that are received above and beyond these expenses, will be utilized on future project bird expenses and/or projects of the 501c3. 

His cause of death came back as he was predisposed to a disease called necrotic enteritis which is when the intestines are inflamed and start to die. In cases of stress or damage, this disease comes out of nowhere and not a lot about it is understood. Secondary, he had signs of atherosclerosis from a high fat diet in the past. So basically, his life in that hoarding situation for so long just set him up for all of this. Although we knew we couldn't reverse everything with changing his diet and environment, we are really glad we were able to make a difference in how he felt about people (at least one human).

I know Capri will keep her heart open to another project bird in the future but right now we are just wanting her to know it's safe and appropriate to mourn and miss him.

If you would like to send Capri a card or anything in the mail, she loves receiving mail, here is our fan mail address:

217 Cedar St #401

Sandpoint ID 83864

If you know of a tiny/small bird that you think would make a great next project bird for her, please DM me here on Patreon or email me at info@birdtricks.com and we will take it under consideration (timeframe likely being the spring - which for us is May!)

I wanted you all to know first. And just know it will likely take us a while to go public with this information. It's just a lot of sadness right now and when Capri is distracted she's great but when she remembers, she's not. We are all not... especially Blueberry who has been probably the most affected which also came as a complete surprise to us.

Thanks for listening, and thank you to any of you who choose to help us in these expenses. I've always just had my business cover project bird expenses unless someone has pushed me more adamantly to cover something (like last year with Sunny's vet bill being completely sponsored by a single patron - WOW!) and now I'm choosing to be more transparent about the expenses we normally endure and be okay asking for help.

Project Parrots and this link is a registered non-profit so your donations are tax deductible. I'm still working on a website and logo for it and we have applied to be a verified charity with PayPal but that will take at least 3 days for our approval process because again, so new.

Thanks everyone. Hug and kiss your birds a little more for us today.