One For The Birds

Our family used to eat in the dining room, admits Janice Rothe, 44, a Baltimore mother of two teenage girls and an 8-year-old son.The spacious room with lovely French doors made a perfect setting for Janice’s famous formal dinners and holiday feasts. But that was before she removed the table and replaced it with a 100-year-old petrified grapevine (cost $500) and a swinging trapeze. “For the parrots,” she explains cheerfully. ”Everyone else eats in the kitchen.” Janice didn’t know anything about parrots when she bought her first one-a little peach-faced lovebird named Kiwi, for her son, Joey-four years ago. Naturally, she was the one who wound up taking care of it. But she also fell in love with it.”A parrot considers you a member of its flock.” She explains, ”Mine give me kisses and preen my hair.”

Next came Tiki, a green-winged macaw who eats Cream of Wheat with a spoon clutch in one foot, and Sydney, a white umbrella cockatoo. Smaller parrots include Annabelle, a blue fronted Amazon who makes Janice’s husband come running for nothing by calling for ”Bob!” in Janice’s voice, and Teddy, a conscientious African grey who takes parrot roll call each morning. ”He calls out each bird’s name, says hello, and won’t go on the next till the right bird says hello back,” says Janice. If giving up your dining room is a gesture of love, sacrificing your Jacuzzi is an act of eternal devotion. Though Tiki and Sydney are the only ones large enough to enjoy the jet action, Janice uses the tub to bathe each bird individually every two days.

This, plus cooking their fresh-vegetable medleys every day, leaves her time for only a quick shower in any case. Though Janice won’t admit to favorites, Tiki is clearly special. The only feathered quest at a recent dinner party, Tiki stood happily on the table slurping up spaghetti Bolognese, till she noticed she was the only diner without a piece of garlic bread. Her reaction? She walked across the table, stuck her beak in the basket, and retrieved the largest slice. Janice quit her 17-year teaching career to earn her Avian Certification, and now runs her own bird-toy company. She has to do well, because the birds upkeep runs to several thousand dollars a year. And Janice has put the parrots in her will (Sydney could live to 75 and Tiki, 100). As for guardians, the children were required to pick which birds they want to inherit.