Hi! My name is Bandit and I am a budgerigar or budgie, except most people call me a parakeet. (I am a parakeet; a budgie is a kind of parakeet, but not all parakeets are budgies. We are all members of the parrot family, though. I have a Latin name which is melopsittacus undulatus. That means I am a singing parrot with wavy marks on my wings!)

If you can't see my pictures, I am a color called "harlequin pied." I am mostly yellow with a bright green tummy and a green ring around my neck. I have black spots on my wings and black stripes around my eyes. The stripes around my eyes are how I got my name--I have a mask like a bandit.

Actually my full name is Bandit Benton Young, after the cute dog and Dr. Quest on Jonny Quest--that is a teevee show we like. (Mama Hen says to say the "real" Jonny Quest, not the new one!!!)

I live in a big nest in a place called Atlanta with my Mama Hen and Daddy and my little sister the dog who is called Willow after Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I have a room all my own with a teevee and lots of books. (Books are really good to eat even if the humans tell you not to.)

I like the teevee the best. It has music and lots of people talking on it. There are different places--Mama Hen says they are "channels"--on the teevee. One place is bad and we don't watch it anymore. This is AMC where they sometimes show people in the olden days that Grandma Hen comes from. They are bad because they cancelled our favorite teevee show Remember WENN. Daddy likes to watch the airplane place and oh, and both Mama Hen and Daddy like to watch someplace that shows history. We watch that a lot. History is what happened when Grandma Hen was a fledgling. We also watch the nest-building channel to see crazy Matt and Shari (Mama Hen mostly) and the computer channel to see Thunderbirds (no relation to me) and crazy Leo and Patrick (there are a lot of crazy people on the teevee). We used to like someplace called Game Show that had black and white on Sunday night--black and white is how the world looked when Mama Hen and Daddy were chicks--but they are all in color now.

My favorite place has shows all about animals including All-Bird TV! Mama Hen likes that channel 'cause it shows 'Mergency Vets, Animal Precinct, and Animal Cops. It used to show Lassie, too, but no more. My other dog sister Leia--she's at Rainbow Bridge now--always said Lassie is not a real dog. I don't know what Willow thinks of Lassie--she doesn't watch much teevee. Instead she is a real pest and gets all the attention and I have to go in my birdhouse every time she has to go outside! (Outside is where there are trees were wild birdies live! They have no seed cups and no millet! I feel bad for them!)

When we are not watching teevee sometimes we have music. Sometimes we even have music on real records like when Mama Hen was a fledgling. Mama Hen likes Merry Chrisbird music and sometimes we listen to it even when it is not Merry Chrisbird. We also like Rupert Holmes and George Winston and Moody Blues and something called Big Band which isn't very big; it still fits on a CD. ??? Don't understand humans sometimes.

I can talk and say words outloud and I can also talk on the big computer and the big 'puter can talk to the Internet. So I can talk on the Internet, too. I jump on the keys and make letters. All Mama Hen's friends on her chat say "Hi, Bandit!" (Mama Hen says I have an ego the size of Pittsburgh! That is silly! I just like people to look at my pictures and say I am cute!)

Mama Hen was always unhappy with me because although I am over eight years old I will not eat a lot of people food that is good for me. I don't know how to tell her that people food looks really weird to me and I am afraid of it. Sometimes I will eat a celery leaf from the grocery store, though. Finally one day on something called Easter I ate some people food. I was at the table with the rest of the family and Mama Hen put a teeny bit of people food on the edge of a bowl. I nibbled on it and it was okay. She said they were a noodle and a little bit of chicken. I also drank a little chicken soup. Mama Hen was very happy. Grandma Hen got to see me eat it and she was happy, too. Now I try some people food sometimes; I like white seed in soup the best and every once in a while a noodle seed. (Mama Hen says to tell you white seed is called "rice.") Oh, and Easter is a good bird holiday because part of it has to do with eggs!

She is also trying to get me to eat something she calls "long seed." She puts it in the dish with my real seed, but I fool her and just pick around it 'cause I heard the vetlady tell her it was really pellets and I don't like pellets!

I do other stuff, too, besides talk on the 'puter. Of course I have to sing to Mama Hen. This is very important. Every day I sing in her ear and tell her what happened on the teevee. I have a bird playpen where my string is. I like to chew on my string! Sometimes I am chewing on my string and Willow is chewing on her bone and Mama Hen says it is nice and quiet with the children gnawing. I have some rings on the side of my birdhouse. They have a noisy bell on the end of them, so I go beat up the bell to get it to shut up. Sometimes Mama Hen and I play "drop the rings." She picks them up and I drop them, then look cute. I also like to climb on Mama Hen's and Daddy's heads. They say their heads are not jungle gyms but I know better! I love to climb down Mama Hen's head and peck on her glass eyes and she tells me "Bandit, get your feet out of my eyes!" You see she has real eyes under her glass ones and boy is it weird when she takes the glass ones off.

My favorite thing is visiting the pretty bird in the mirror. He lives in the downstairs bathroom and only when you turn on the light. He is very handsome and looks just like me so I have to fly and chirp to make sure he does not get at my Mama Hen. She is mine though Daddy will tell you that is not so!

These are some of the people words I say:

I can also kiss and imitate the 'puter keys and water pouring and Sister barking and Mama Hen clearing her throat!

My Photos

This is me as a baby. See my stripes down to my cere?
	When I was a chick I used to do all sorts of weird things. This is me doing upside bird.
This is me swimming for Grandma Hen. I don't go swimming anymore because I have a sore leg, but it's still one of the things I can get to do when it is warm. Afterwards I have to go in my birdhouse to dry off, but I beat up my bell because it is all the bell's fault.
	Mama Hen did something called "broidery," playing with strings on a cloth. I liked to play with the strings, even if she didn't like me to!!! Right now I am just sitting on the stand.
Mama Hen says "don't play with the needles, Bandit!" and I look her right in the eye and say..."Okay, Mama Hen."
	This is me and my sister Leia when we lived at our old nest. She had the greatest strings on her face near her nose, but she would never let me chew on them. I never did find out why!
This is me with that handsome birdie that lives in the bathroom mirror. Mama Hen calls this "Double Vision"!
	This is me on Daddy's head while he plays on the 'puter.
Mama Hen calls this "hanging by a hair" but wouldn't that be hairs?