Greater Indian Hill mynahs are capable of developing large vocabularies, mimicking various sounds and imitating both high and low voices.  She learned new words and phrases throughout her whole life, and a few of her favorite sayings were "Hello Howard",  "Watch ya doing?",  "Oh boy!", "What's on now?". "What's your problem?",  "Watch you know now?",  "Well, well, well", "Get out of that bed right now!".   She would even send our dog (Chopper) to his room.  She would say "Chopper! Go to your room!" - and he would obey her, looking back as he headed on down the hall.  I am sure he was wondering what he had done wrong.  Of course, we would call him and tell him he wasn't in trouble.  We wonder how many times Howard sent Chopper to his room when we were not there.  Good old Chopper – he was such an obedient dog.

Howard was with us for almost 12 years.  We buried her with her favorite toys.  Unlike most mynahs, she was one that really enjoyed them.  We missed her dearly after she was gone, and still do.  We had no idea we could get so attached to a mynah bird.  She was a big part of our family.  We longed to have another mynah, so the search began and 2 years later, we named our next mynah "Howard" in memory of our first.

Howard had a layover in Cincinnati, Ohio - a long one.  We had quite a scare.  The total time involved for Howard's trip was only supposed to be 3 hours from the time the breeder had him flown out of Ft. Myers, FL, to his arrival at the airport in South Bend, Indiana.  Instead of the 3 hour short trip it was supposed to be, it ended up being a long 18 hours.  As we were waiting for the scheduled arrival, we heard those dreadful words over the intercom - the plane had been delayed from Cincinnati to South Bend.  Then after waiting a couple extra hours we heard another announcement - the flight had been canceled!  Howard was stuck in Cincinnati.  We were worried.  I began to cry for fear my baby was going to starve to death.  We called the breeder and told her the news and she told us she put notes all over Howard's carrier with instructions saying inside was a “live baby bird unable to feed itself and must be hand fed every 3 hours”.  She had put everything inside that was needed to feed the bird.  She was thinking ahead.  Still we worried that someone may not pay attention to the notes or may not be able to do the hand feeding correctly and so we kept phoning the number for the airline but could not get anyone to answer the phone.  The long distance information for the airlines was no help.  There wasn't anyone at the desk in Cincinnati because by then it was late at night and no more flights were scheduled. 

Close to 3 in the morning we were at our wits end and went home. Contemplating driving to Cincinnati to pick up the bird ourselves, we decided it was too much risk.  Already, so much time had passed and it would be a 3 to 4 hour drive to Cincinnati, and what if he could leave there for South Bend while we were on our way.  We had no idea what was going on or if they were putting him on a different plane with another airline to get him to us.   We tried once more to phone the airline’s desk in Cincinnati and finally had some luck.  A security guard happened to be passing by when he heard the phone ringing and answered!   He would try and help us someone would be calling us back soon.  A few minutes later we received a call from a baggage carrier.  He said "I hear you are worried about your mynah bird?"  He assured us our baby was fine.  In fact he was looking at him as we spoke.  Howard was on his desk looking up at him.  This man used to be a bird breeder and he knew all about hand feeding baby birds.  He'd been taking care of Howard ever since he arrived in Cincinnati and heard there was a delay.  What a relief.  We're so grateful.  Please don't be afraid to have a baby air shipped after reading about Howard's adventure.  He wasn't aware there was a problem since he was being taken care of - it was more of an adventure for us!!  This was a fluke and usually does not happen.  The airline assured us that we didn't need to worry, but we needed to talk first hand to who was taking care of the bird in order to feel assured.
 

A couple weeks after Howard's arrival he decided he'd first flight.  He landed on a swag high in our living room and faced the wall as if he was trying to blend in with the flowers. He seemed to be thinking no one would notice him of he didn't move.  Or maybe he was just surprised at himself at what he'd just done.  We had to get a chair to get him down. We trimmed his wings afterwards.

Holly is one very few silver winged babies.  The breeder had two pairs of birds that would always produce at least one or two silver winged babies along with a normal in each clutch.  She's yet to figure this out.  Her birds were all fed the same.  Nothing weird was being done to make this happen.  It just did.  Howard was from the other pair that would produce silver winged babies but he was the normal one from his clutch.  Holly's parents are Helen and John. Howard's parents are Mr. and Mrs. Adalay.   The breeder names all her breeder birds.  If Howard and Holly ever breed we will be anxious to see if they produce any silver winged babies. 

We enjoyed Holly's silver wings while they lasted, for they changed completely to the normal Greater Hill mynah coloring after her third molt.  Lynda said that is the way it had been going with each of the silver winged babies.  Holly was so much tinier than Howard even though we purchased her at same age as we did him.  She is a petite little mynah.  Her plane trip went smoothly and arrived at the airport on time.  Total trip was 3 hours, just as scheduled.  After getting her home, she acted the opposite of how Howard acted when he first arrived.  She would hardly sleep at all between feedings.  Howard slept just like a newborn baby only waking up to eat.  Holly wanted absolutely nothing to do with a dark, quiet cardboard box to sleep in and took to the cage and her nest box immediately.  She had already taken her first flight just a couple of days before she was shipped to us.

Another version of this article (Our Mynah Birds) was published in June 1998 issue of Bird Times Magazine.