I have been missing since July, when I went to Cornwall.
I still read the forum every day and tried to post as much as I could but there has been so much going on these last weeks, and not many good news to report.

When I came back from Cornwall (a 6-day camping holiday with Paul) I entered in a massive row with the Council (my landlord) over the way I use my rooms.
They don't want me to sleep in the living room where there is an open fire (which they consider potentially dangerous) and find it unacceptable that I prefer to sleep in a sofa bed in the living room instead of having a proper bed in my bedroom (which is the bird room). The fact that I use a room exclusively for my birds is something they simply don't accept.

I find unacceptable that someone else has the power to decide where I can or cannot sleep, in my own house. In theory, I should be able to sleep on a hammock suspended over the toilet bowl in the bathroom, if I like it.

After a lot of angry phone calls (in the meantime they blocked my gas supply so no heating), I spoke to a consumer association, and they told me: first you comply and do what they ask. THEN, after you got the gas supply back and avoided the risk of being evicted, you start writing letters, doing research, protest etc.
Seemed a good plan so I did that.

At that time I had 15 cockatiels and 2 quails. In a week I had to reduce the number of birds because if the Council found out that I have so many birds it was again eviction risk.
The aviary I posted about a few months ago had no problems taking the quails, but would only accept hen cockatiels because they are trying to reduce the number of males.

Last Monday I took the quails there, and I have to say they looked much much happier than at home. They are in the aviary with the tiels and a few alexandrines, all birds they know already, so they spend their time going inside (there is a part of the aviary that's heated and enclosed) and steal the tiels' food

Tuesday I had to give up three of my girls. Claudia was an obvious choice, I was sure she'd be happier there. Then I decided for Che, a rescue lutino girl with a difficult past who never wanted anything to do with humans.
The third was Sesamo, and you maybe can imagine how much I cried about it. But she seemed the only one who would have a better life in the aviary: here she was a loner, the other birds completely ignored her and she wasn't happy with me either.

Well, the results were amazing. She joined in immediately, one grey boy saw her and basically glued himself to her, and she seemed so much at home! I stayed there for about an hour, checking on them all, and not once they came close to me: they were too busy enjoying all the tielness around them, foraging, trying the new toys etc.
Claudia and Che were difficult to spot because they are not unique, but I was able to see Sesamo all the time, with those amazing colours and the weird crest
I took some pictures, they are not great because most of them are taken through the mesh, but they will give you an idea of what was going on with these girls.

I am uploading them now and will post as soon as they're ready.

With 5 birds gone, I still have 12 and due to the upcoming Council inspection I had to do something to make a few disappear.
Thank god I have a fellow bird-crazy lady living not far from me, and she offered to keep as many as I needed for two days so that I could move my bedroom in the bird room and make it look less of a jungle.
Doing that with 12 tiels flying around is not easy, let me tell you!
So I did the modifcations and now the bird room is no more. I am so sad, after all the work I put into it! I even had to buy a bed, which is the only positive in all this because it's very comfy.

My friend kept 8 birds during the inspection day, so it looked like I only had four. Everything went fine, Council happy, they won't be bothering me hopefully for a long time. How much I hate bureaucrats and authority figures! I wish them all to hell.

This is the new Bird-Bed Room, I have never seen anything so sad looking lol

This is the fourth ange of the new room, possibly the horridest of them all




Anyway, the deed is done and I will have to try to make the best out of a difficult situation.

Obviously I can't sleep with 12 birds so I had to position the cages in different rooms.
I will have 5 in the bedroom: Bubu & Mr Darcy, and Trilly, Frank & Bimbo in the second cage.

I have Amish & Dougal, the newest fosters (real name Charlie and Buster but I think the new names fit them better) in a cage in the living room together with Angelina, Sam and Jack in a bigger cage.

Keith and Rocky Strider have their cage in the kitchen, it's possibly the best place for a bird cage because it's in front of the window overlooking the garden, but they will only sleep there anyway and spend the day with the rest of the flock in the bed-bird room.

It's not an ideal situation at all, I would still like to keep them all together night and day, and if you have some ideas please let me know how I can modify this setup.

I'm sorry that you have to go through all this. How does the Council know where you sleep anyway - do they have periodic inspections or did this just come to their attention somehow? I have a neighborhood association that puts some limits on what people can do outdoors to keep the neighborhood looking nice, but they don't tell us what we can do indoors or where we can sleep.

If there are periodic inspections, maybe you could keep a bed in the room for appearance's sake but continue sleeping in the place you prefer, and restore the bird room as close to the way you like as possible. If they show up and there's clutter on top of the bed making it impossible to sleep there, tell them you were just doing some cleaning lol. If there aren't periodic inspections, just put everything back the way you like it and close the drapes at night so no one knows where you sleep.

Oh, Barbara, that sounds so awful! I remember how much you loved creating the bird room.

I have a disabled brother who is on federal government rent subsidy. Periodically, they come to inspect his living situation. He is always so nervous about it.

Hugs.

Large potted plants in front of the windows will help prevent nosy neighbors from seeing what's going on inside. Well-chosen plants will also be a source of bird food lol. You might have to put a hardware cloth screen around the plants to keep the birds from destroying them completely.

It was a really unfortunate bunch of coincidences happening together.
I had the annual gas checkup carried out by the council, the guy came in and saw the sofa bed in the living room opened (I was preparing for the trip so there was a lot of stuff on it, but still it was obvious that I had slept on it).
He immediately called the council and that's how it started.
I should have been quick-witted and told him that my bedroom was the other room, a small one with a bed Paul uses as His Boy Room (lol), but I was slow and didn't think of lying. I still kick myself for what went on that day.

Right now they (in my opinion) suspect that I will return everything back as it was, so before doing anything I will have to wait a while.

Added to this, they have (I have and have complained) found out that my floor is made of the infamous 9x9" lyno tiles that contain asbestos. Many are broken and as such they are a health risk.
They will have to carry out work in three rooms and it will go on for at least a couple of months between them being slow etc.
So during this time I will have Council people coming and going.

The asbestos guy came in, saw the room and exclaimed: Ahhh you are the Bird Lady!! Apparently everyone at the ouncil office knows that I keep birds and had one room dedicated to them.
These people really have too much time in their hands.

These are the pictures of the girls in the aviary, sorry about the really bad quality

This is Sesamo just arrived in. The scruffy looking boy is her first suitor




Here she joined in the flock foraging activity



And here looking around (still the suitor in view)

This is Claudia who immediately went for the food, Che is at her left



I think this is Che, difficult to say at that distance



And this is Claudia again

This is so sad. I'm so sorry all this happened. I'm speachless.

Aww, I'm sad to see you don't have Sesamo anymore. She was my favorite. But, it is more important that she is happy where she is now.

This is why I'm getting a tiny house. No yards, no mortgages, but I do need to find some property near an exotic vet just in case. But first, I can't wait to get my bird room. Seems like everyone here has one or an aviary. Or both.