PARAKEET SURVIVES MAJOR SURGERY

This blue and green, 6-year-old parakeet was one sick little bird when she was brought in to Dr. Skip Nelson's Exotic Pet and Bird Clinic in suburban Seattle two months ago. "She had an egg that wouldn't come out," said Artful's owner Jan Lingenfelter of Bellevue.

After trying to make things move in several different ways, Dr. Nelson, who has been in practice for decades, decided that Artful's only hope at life was to remove this egg, her first ever, from where it was lodged in the bird's oviduct.

"It was the tiniest surgery I've ever done," says Dr. Nelson, of the four-person job, on a 1-ounce parakeet.

It took 40 minutes to anesthetize and successfully operate and stitch Artful up with silk sutures.

Nelson, who has worked on creatures as large as elephants and whales and as small as pet moths and grasshoppers in his illustrious career, calls Artful "one tough bird."

Lingenfelter may have the only parakeet with a hysterectomy in history. As for the veterinary bill, "We're up there at this point," she says, alluding to four-figures. "I'm treating her now like she's made of gold. My women friends say all the birds in heaven will sing for me." Her men friends say something entirely different.