CYCLOPS

"CLOPSY" was hatched on March 1st, 1995.
She appeared to be a normal Peach-fronted Conure baby at first, but within days it became obvious that she had a problem... she had only a tiny slit on the right side where her eye should be.
I adopted her when she was ten days old and took over the chore of hand feeding the tiny baby.
As we progressed toward weaning, it became apparent that her left eye had an abnormality as well, and we were concerned that she was totally blind.
As it turned out, we found that she does have some degree of sight in her left eye. But if you look at the pictures carefully, you'll see that her left eye turns inward toward her beak. We think she can only see things close up and directly in front of her.
She has other problems as well.
Even though she ate well, she never grew at the rate she should have, resulting in her being much smaller than she should be. Her feathers didn't grow in normally either.
With so many things wrong, we didn't hold out much hope for her long-term survival.
I guess we didn't anticipate her strong will to survive.
In spite of her poor vision, she gets around her cage quite well and even plays with her toys like any "normal" bird does.
We announce our presence when we approach her cage, being careful to approach from her left side. We've made every effort to make her life as comfortable and happy as we can.
We expect nothing from her in return... except to hope that she is aware of our love for her.

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