Whitey is a huge, white cat with brilliant blue eyes. And he is completely deaf. Whitey doesn’t hear a thing but this handicap does nothing to deter him from his singular goal in life – to catch a bird. Whitey spends hours sitting below the wild bird feeder hunting birds and he never, ever catches one. He doesn’t even come close.
Whitey jumps in the air to catch the birds as they approach the feeder, but he’s too fat to jump high enough to snag one. He hides in the flowers and tries to stalk the birds, but he’s white and easy to see. The birds can see him from miles away and aren’t fooled by his attempt at camouflage. Despite every failed attempt, Whitey enthusiastically tries again and again to catch a bird, just one.
One morning Aunt Mel was feeding the horses and Whitey was hiding behind the water tub stalking wild birds. There was a sudden flash of white as Whitey raced to the corner of the pasture. Aunt Mel turned and couldn’t believe her eyes. Whitey had a bird in his mouth! He did it! Whitey caught a bird! But wait…. what kind of bird is that?
Aunt Mel dropped the feed bucket and ran over to Whitey for a better look. As she neared, the bird got away and flew a few feet to the fence. What the heck kind of bird is that? Aunt Mel slowly walked toward the bird when Whitey raced past her, leaped onto the fence and caught the bird again. Unbelievable! Aunt Mel knew something was wrong with this stupid bird that Whitey could catch it twice. She grabbed Whitey and pulled the bird out of his mouth. It wasn’t a wild bird at all. It was some sort of a parrot – a pet bird. No wonder it could get caught twice by the worst bird hunter in the world – it was a pet and had no sense of survival like the wild birds.
The bird was not injured so Aunt Mel brought it into the house and put it in a large pet carrier. She goggled birds until she found a photo identifying the breed. A cockatiel. How about that? Whitey McFly finally caught a bird and it was the best bird any of the cats ever caught – a new pet for Aunt Mel’s farm. The bird was named “Peep” and Whitey McFly was rewarded with an extra spoon of wet at food for dinner that night.
Each egg is smooth and warm and white. They are the size of your thumbnail. She lays between 3 and 7. She clears a spot in a corner on the floor of her cage and arranges the eggs carefully beneath. She sits all day warming the eggs, moving they around with her beak, and serving her role as diligent mother. But they never hatch because they are unfertilized.