I love birds. Everyone knows that. Since 1996 I’ve lived with and loved the smallest of the cockatoo family: cockatiels. My book “Mithril and Me: A Love Story” focuses on my longest lived and forever cherished cockatiel cockatoo, Mithril (2003 – 2024). She’s not the only bird in the book, but she was the longest lived of all my birds.

A recent edition of Foster Parrots’ newsletter “The Flying Monkey” talks about the idea of the “velcro bird” as a major reason why people get cock...