MALONE — Reconstruction at the Malone McDonald’s franchise has been overseen from a nearby treetop by a feisty 22-year-old female.
Savannah, a blue and gold macaw, is at the job site every day with her companion, Brian Kirk of Rutland, Vt.
He works for Hunt Company Inc. construction of Argyle, which is refurbishing the Route 11 site and others across the Northeast.
Savannah travels all summer with Kirk and stays in Vermont for the winters.
FUSSY ABOUT FRIENDS
He hesitates to call himself her "owner," since she has clearly been the boss of their relationship for the 18 years they’ve been together.
“She doesn’t like women, and, oh, she hates my girlfriend with a passion,” Kirk said of the person he has dated for two years. “She chases her into the bathroom.”
He said Savannah acted the same way during most of the 23 years he was with the mother of his children.
“Three women in a row had her in four years, and I’ve had her for 18, so I think she just doesn’t like women,” Kirk said. “She’ll scream.
"And she can talk, but she doesn’t speak very much.”
WATCHING THE ACTION
He said he is not worried about her flying away during their adventures because Savannah has a healed broken wing that prevents her from taking flight.
So she passes the time watching the fast-food customers and busy construction workers below and occasionally hops a lift on Kirk’s finger to go to his van, where she grabs a snack from a paper cup, mostly a mix of nuts and seeds.
She perches on the passenger-side handhold on the dashboard and rides shotgun with her companion, ignoring any passenger-seat occupants unless she takes a dislike to them.
That’s when Savannah screams to get them to scram so she can have Kirk, their van and the view of the open road all to herself.
“She loves it,” he says of their travels. “At least, she hasn’t said anything any different.”
DANCING
Savannah has been known to entertain herself and others with her dancing when a vehicle approaches the construction site with music playing.
“Oh, she bebops,” Kirk said, imitating the bird’s bob-and-weave moves best he can on human legs. “She doesn’t like rap. She screams at that, but she’s more a fan of modern-day rock, I guess.”
Savannah will live to be about 40, and Kirk said she will eventually go to live with his son, A.J., who said he’s looking forward to taking her in.
“Sure, why not?” said the young man, who is also 22, like his future roommate, although she might describe their living arrangement another way.
Kirk, who has had the experience of sharing space with her, tells his son that living with Savannah will be “more like having a wife. You do what she tells you to do because if you don’t, you get bit.”
Email Denise A. Raymo: draymo@pressrepublican.com
