K.C.'s Little Miracle
© January 5, 2002 Sybil Erden, Founder
The Oasis Sanctuary Foundation, LTD.

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K.C. had a breakthrough today. It made me so happy I cried...

K.C. is a little Congo African Grey who came to live at The Oasis about two years ago. His story was a true rescue situation. A couple came upon him in a home where the teenaged boys were beating him and his cage. K.C. was terrified and although the couple knew nothing about birds, they recognized the seriousness of his situation and bought him from the owners.


Rafiki (Back) - Lucy (Middle) - K.C.  (Front)

K.C. settled into his new home with his new family. Although still terrified of most people, his screaming began to subside. However, after several months, the husband, a military man who was the primary caregiver, was shipped overseas. The wife, a young mother of two, was afraid of K.C. Although she did her best to care for the frightened and often screaming little Grey, it took everything she had to risk the repeated attacks and bites just to feed him. She contacted a rescue group about helping her place the bird. It was decided that K.C. would come to The Oasis.

K.C. did nothing but scream and growl at people, but he seemed to enjoy the company of other Greys. A few months after moving to our new location, we built a small aviary for several of the Greys that had become friends. Although I had trepidation about K.C. moving outdoors, surprisingly he was the first to settle in and enjoy the new environment. Within a week or two he no longer growled at me and actually would whistle and make other happy Grey noises. Although we never heard him speak, the whistles and calls were obviously his attempt at communicating with us....

Over the next few months K.C. and I began having eye contact and he began to move closer and closer to me as I would feed. Today was the breakthrough day...

While I was in the "safety" reaching in through the door to feed, K.C. came up to the very outside of the cage. Unlike times in the past when he would rapidly back up if I attempted to touch or kiss him, today he let me kiss his beak!! I then kissed Rafiki and Lucy, two of the other Greys, and "touched tongues" with them. I moved back over to K.C. and moved to kiss and touch tongues with him. He allowed that!

Then K.C. looked me right in the eye and in a soft little voice said "Hello..."

[NOTE: K.C. came to us from Midwest Avian Adoption & Rescue Services, Inc. (MAARS). When we sent them the story of his remarkable breakthrough, Kathy Pietig, Vice President of MAARS wrote the following, which provides all of us with a deeper understanding of what a truly big step this was for K.C.]

That is very heartwarming. I know how bad his terror was. When we first received the call the woman said that she could not even get him out of the cage to take him to the airport. She hired a local vet student to come to her home to towel him and get out him in a carrier to go the airport. I flew to Idaho to pick him up at the airport and bring him to Minnesota.

When I walked down the aisle on the plane to return with him he was screaming and every head was looking out the aisle to see what was making the demonic sound. When I took him off the plane he screamed so loud that my legs actually buckled. He sounded like a child screaming for their life. Everyone in the airport was stopping me to ask what I was carrying. I had him in my home for six weeks before we flew him to The Oasis. I had to walk into the room with my hands behind my back or he would thrash horribly in his cage out of fear and hurt himself. When Eileen and I first took him to the vet we had to turn the lights out in the exam room because he was so terrified.

When the day came for him to fly to The Oasis we decided we needed to medicate him so he would not hurt himself. Sitting at the airport he actually came to the front of the carrier and (I swear) smiled at us. Eileen and I have seen him at The Oasis since and we know what a long road he had to go down. I'm so happy for that little step he took and it will always give me the hope that there is "hope" for every one of them.

Kathy Pietig
Vice President
Midwest Avian Adoption & Rescue Services, Inc