My friend Jill is an innocent party in a menage de trois. There are three players in her marriage … herself, her husband John and a 15 year old bird who is madly in love with him!
But there’s good news as well as bad.
The good news is, the other bird is a white show-girl called Feathers, an Umbrella Cockatoo who can puff up her top notch and display a bright yellow head dress.
And the bad news is she is a deadly rival due to her possessive nature and razor sharp beak and talons!

Since Feathers matured and laid her first egg, she took John on as her ‘Dearly beloved, for better or for worse, and poor Jill, the rightful spouse, became her sworn enemy! Now there is nothing unusual about this as birds often behave in this manner towards human members of the opposite sex.

Attacking the rightful wife

Now the ‘green-eyed’, feathered one had shown her disapproval on several occasions by ambushing the lawfully married wife who was afraid of taking up arms in self defence, lest she harmed the delicate bird. Fortunately John, whom Feathers obeyed unquestioningly, had mostly been present to rescue Jill from serious harm!

It was on one such occasion when Jill was in the kitchen that Feathers, in a foul mood, jumped onto her shoulder and hung upside down like bat, glowering into her opponents face, hoping to provoke a show down.
Jill knew if she moved the bird would attack her so she stood dead still waiting for Feathers to get bored and leave her in peace. But as fate would have it, John phoned from the pool about 200 metres away requesting his wife join him.
Gingerly she lifted the receiver and told her husband Feathers was holding her to ransom.
“Put her on the phone immediately!” he demanded.
And as Jill held the phone towards the Cockatoo she heard her husband ordering the bird to return to her cage.
Reluctantly the bird let go her iron grip of Jill’s jersey and fluttered off to her cage about 7 pages away.
“Is she in her cage now?”
“No, she’s on it.”
“Put her back on the phone then!”
Jill stretched the cord as far as it would uncoil, towards a most unhappy cockatoo.
“GET INTO YOUR CAGE AT ONCE!” he demanded.
Mumbling little cheeps of discontent, Feathers dragged herself into her cage and Jill quickly slammed the gate closed.
“Okay”, she said “It’s safe now; I’ll be with you in a sec.!”
And so the lawfully wedded wife was able to join her lawfully wedded husband for cocktails at the pool.