Yesterday morning Sam was sitting in front of the small window facing the side fence, I guess he saw the neighbour's cat and took a fright.
Started flying around like mad and crashed on the kitchen window twice before I managed to towel him and calm him down.

He seemed fine, but when I came back from a day trip I found out that a strip of feathers from his right cheek was gone.
I am pretty sure the cheek was all feathered in the morning so I guess he scratched his ear and pulled those feathers out.

He seems lethargic, didn't do his usual foot serenade and those missing feathers are worrying me a lot. Maybe one of you has some idea about how these feathers were lost.

Fortunately today is Wednesday so Dr Brian will see him in the late afternoon.
I am afraid he might have injured his ear!
He hates being touched so I wasn't able to look closely to his ear.
Please send us good thoughts, I am so scared for him!

Good thoughts your way always...
Hope Sammy is ok?

I hope he's OK. I once had a cockatiel knock out face feathers in an "eyebrow" pattern by crashing into the wall. Sammy may have knocked the feathers loose by hitting that part of his face against the window, and if he has any swelling in that area it might have helped push them out.

The visit went better than I expected, I was already imagining concussion, ear injury, brain injury, you name it I though of it.

Dr Brian eliminated the concussion possibility and also the ear damage because Sam would not have balance and coordination; instead he can fly fine and the ear from the outside looks fine. He has a bruise near it, just where the feathers fell down.

Doc said that crashing twice on the window gave him a good beating and he's shaken and feeling sorry for himself.
We have to keep him under observation in case he has balance problems, for the rest just let him do what he wants.

Right now he's napping on his daddy's shoulder while they fly a plane on the flight simulator.

I miss his singing and chatting but the vet said he'll be himself again when he gets better in a few days.

What a scare he gave me!!!

I'm so sorry about what happened. I'm glad he isn't too hurt.

Thank you, Baruch, he is such a delicate boy, and accident prone!
That's why I keep him out of the Bird room.

Your so responsible. He is so lucky to have you.

I'm glad he's basically OK!

This is how he looked Tuesday



Terrible, with that eye semi-shut.

Definitely better, especially today. He even sang a little bit, poor little one.
He just got that strip of feathers missing, it gives him the air of a scarred little pirate

That's very similar to the mark Geezer had after he hit the wall, only his was above the eye not on the cheek. He was obviously dizzy for 10 minutes afterward and I was terrified that he was going to drop dead right in front of me. But then he stopped wobbling and was OK. He liked to look at himself in the mirror and it was funny to watch him after the accident. First he'd look at the normal side of his face, then he'd turn his head and look at the side with the "eyebrow" with a look of horror on his face. He did this over and over until the feathers grew back, which didn't take very long.