09/29/2026
Two years ago, Koba came to me plucked and terrified. ❤️
I still remember the fear in his eyes. The way they bulged when I got too close. His entire body trembling because he was so afraid.
And Koba came with a whole vocabulary.
Sometimes he talks in an old man’s voice. Sometimes a woman’s voice. He coughs, mimics entire conversations and can make you swear there are other people in the room.
But some of the things he said weren’t funny.
He would yell at himself to “shut the f* up.”**
He’d tell himself to “knock it off.”
He even used to call himself an “ugly plucked bird.”
I’ll never know every detail of Koba’s life before he came here.
I just knew the bird in front of me was terrified, and I wasn’t going to force him to trust me.
His cage door stayed open.
It took 3 months before he chose to come out.
It took 6 months before he trusted me enough to step up.
Koba has always been a talker, but only when people aren’t around. You could hear all of his voices and conversations from another room, but walk in and he’d go quiet.
For two years, that’s how it was.
Until yesterday.
Yesterday, Koba stepped up into my hands…
and he started talking. 🥹
For the first time in two years, I was holding him while he used that voice he had always saved for when nobody was around.
And suddenly I remembered the bird who first came through my door.
The bulging, terrified eyes.
The trembling body.
The missing feathers.
The bird who wouldn’t even come out of an open cage.
The bird who used to call himself an “ugly plucked bird.”
That same bird was standing in my hands, talking.
Three months to leave his cage.
Six months to step up.
Two years to feel safe enough to let me hear his voice while I held him.
People think rescue happens the day you bring an animal home.
Sometimes, that’s only the beginning.
Sometimes rescue happens two years later, in a moment that probably wouldn’t mean much to anyone else.
But to you, it means everything.
His feathers may never tell the whole story of how far he’s come.
But his voice does. ❤️🦜
