I bought my first bird, a juvenile gray cockatiel, in 1990 while my husband was out of the country for an extended period. When I brought her home and put her on the couch, she ran and climbed onto my lap. I was smitten. I read everything about bird keeping that I could get my hands on. And, in short order, I bought a baby budgie to keep my cockatiel Freddie company. Now, nearly 20 years later, my husband I share our apartment with eight birds: five cockatiels (four of whom are Freddie's children), one ancient budgie, a European starling and a partridge. No, that's not a punchline. We really have a partridge. I am the author of New Bird Information, which originally appeared in SQUAWK, the newsletter of the Big Apple Bird Association, then was printed as a brochure to be used by pet stores as a customer handout. Several of my articles have published in Bird Talk magazine.