Can you imagine living with 13 guests, aside from your brothers and sisters? A Lakewood family is raising over a dozen beautiful birds from egg

to adulthood.

Photos: Tali Weldler

Feathered Friends

The first thing we notice when we enter the Lieberman house is the noise. It’s loud — we can hear chirps and whistles from the front door. The friendly Lieberman kids show us all the way to the back where a surprise awaits us: The little playroom off the kitchen has no toys lying around — instead, it has two cages filled with colorful parakeets!

The Lieberman kids know the routine: The door has to be closed first so no birds escape, then they can open the cages to introduce us to their feathered friends. And what a lot of friends they have!

Visitor Eliyahu Appel skips and jumps with delight as Yanky Lieberman opens the larger cage and coaxes a bird into his hands. His two-year-old sister is less excited — she shrinks back and cries as another parakeet zooms over to sit on Mommy’s shoulder. But the Lieberman kids are clearly very comfortable with the birds. Even ten-month-old Esti crawls right over and doesn’t seem the least bit fazed by the flapping, feathery creatures.

Four-year-old Yanky is a pro with the parakeets, and he and 11-year-old Yitzchok Tzvi demonstrate the proper grip needed to hold them — firm enough to keep them safe and calm, but gentle, to avoid squeezing delicate parakeet bones.

Not surprisingly, the girls are a little less enthusiastic about handling the birds, but they also know lots about their life stories and how to take care of them.

How It All Began

Until COVID-19, the Lieberman family had just children, like most other families. But during those long and boring months of lockdown, they discovered a fascinating interest.

At a time when no one shopped except for food and bare necessities, Mr. Lieberman purchased one “fun” item — a birdfeeder for the backyard. Stuck inside with little to do, the kids began to look forward to visits from the feathered visitors who began to frequent their backyard. The birds who came to feast at the feeder added much-needed color, life, and variety to a challenging time in their life

They enjoyed the birds so much that they decided to invite some inside. Their first two parakeets, purchased from a pet shop, were Blue Bird and Yellow Bird, sometimes known as Perri and Keety.

Everyone enjoyed their new friends, but soon they suffered a painful loss.

One Shabbos morning, Yanky, then three, came to visit the birds and announced, “The blue bird is sleeping!” No one had the heart to tell him that the blue bird had died in the night. On Motzaei Shabbos, Blue Bird received hespedim and a solemn funeral.

Parakeets are very friendly, sociable birds, so left by herself, Yellow Bird began to get depressed and lonely.

Meanwhile, the Lieberman family threw themselves into another important project: making sure that, even as Shabbos came in earlier and earlier, they were always ready on time. When Chanukah came and the kids had successfully gotten ready early for Shabbos every week, the family was treated to an “Early Bird Special!” On a surprise family outing, they bought a new companion for Yellow Bird — Chirpy.

Chirpy has loads of personality. He’s very acrobatic, too, performing backbends and all kinds of entertaining stunts, and Yellow Bird came back to life again — for a while. In time, Yellow Bird, too, sadly passed away. Left by himself, Chirpy spent hours talking to himself in the mirror.