CUMBERLAND – They come to Nancy Tims abused, abandoned, sad.

There’s Jessie, the friendly, talkative umbrella cockatoo who’d been used so often as a breeder that she needed surgery to repair the damage to her body.

Maggie, the goffin cockatoo who arrived having already plucked out the downy white feathers around her chest.

Baby, the 22-year-old green wing macaw who cried for his old owners.

And 64 other loud, colorful, troubled exotic birds, most of them in Tims’ tidy Cumberland home.

“Everybody’s grown and so these are my kids,” said Tims, a 64-year-old great-grandmother. “I suppose I had empty nest syndrome.”

Tims started Seymour’s Bird Refuge in 2000 after reading news stories about birds’ increasing popularity as pets – and their increasing need to be rescued from owners who couldn’t or wouldn’t care for them.

Tims’ two daughters had pet birds growing up, mostly parakeets and conures, a small kind of parrot. Tims had six birds of her own when she opened Seymour’s Bird Refuge, named after her first feathered pet, a mynah bird.

She got a refuge license and set up cages in the home she shares with her husband. Word quickly spread among vets and animal lovers that her place was a safe haven for abused, abandoned and unruly birds. She soon averaged 50 birds or more at a time, including a pair of lovebirds found abandoned in a Portland apartment, a bright green military macaw whose owner was recovering from a bone marrow transplant and a 25-year-old double-headed yellow Amazon parrot whose owners got a divorce and decided neither of them wanted her.

“I don’t think they have any idea the pain the birds go through when they walk away,” Tims said.

Tims quit her job as a general manager of Keeley Crane Service in Portland to care for the birds full time. She accepts donations but rarely receives them, so she opened Seymour’s Bird Supply Store down the street from her home to help pay for the $500 a month she spends on bird food, not to mention vet bills.

Seymour’s Bird Refuge is just one of two state-licensed bird refuges in Maine. The second, based in Harmony, is only for parrots.

Tims hopes to start building a separate building for her refuge by next year. For now, 18 finches, parakeets and other small birds call the store home. Forty-nine parrots, cockatoos and other bigger birds stay at the house. Only three rooms are off limits to them: the bathroom, master bedroom and a den for Tims’ husband.

The place falls silent as soon as the sun sets, but during the day Tims’ high-ceiling home echoes with squeaks, squawks and chatter of four dozen birds. Tims knows them all, from rowdy Jeffrey, who bangs on his cage for attention, to sweet Jessie, who reaches out a leg and coos “Hi darlin'” when Tims gets close.

Their cages are large and clean, filled with plastic rings, rope and other toys. They all get a turn outside their cage.

“Delaney always wants to fly,” Tims said of one of her youngest, a 2-year-old blue and gold macaw. “Unfortunately, when he flies he crashes.”

About half of Tims’ birds are adoptable, though families routinely pass by the neediest of the flock, like the lovebirds, who people adore until they find out his beak needs to be trimmed regularly, or Maggie, the sweet-tempered cockatoo who’d plucked out some of her feathers before arriving at Tims.’

“Nobody wants her,” Tims said. “She’s not beautiful, she doesn’t talk. People don’t even ask about her.”

Birds can live for decades. For those that aren’t adopted, Tims has committed to giving them a home for good.

“They’re all pets. They’re all different. They all have their own personalities,” she said.

Have an idea for a pet feature? Contact Lindsay Tice at 689-2854 or e-mail her at [email protected]