Bird Man gone from his usual perch

It’s been a month an a half since beachgoers at Newport Pier have seen Ski Meinschein’s red electric scooter making its way down the boardwalk, with his two scarlet macaws perched on the front.

Laid up in Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian for the past month and a half, Meinschein, known as the Bird Man of Newport Beach, misses his birds and making children at the pier laugh with their tricks.

A retired oil field worker from Indiana, Meinschein and his birds have been a beloved fixture at the pier for the last 30 years.

“I know tons of people; I just wish some of them would come and visit me,” Meinschein said on Saturday from a hospital bed, his long white hair spread out on his pillow like a billowing cloud.

“I don’t want people lined up at the door or anything, but a visitor or two would be nice,” he said.

Meinschein took a bad fall in his Balboa Peninsula apartment in September, breaking his right arm and hitting his head on the stove.

Bleeding from a large gash above his left eye and unable to get up, he lay on the floor for about two hours before a neighbor found him.

He’s been at Hoag ever since, where he’s also been fighting off a bad intestinal infection.

“He misses his interaction with people at the pier,” said Meinschein’s caretaker, Toni Tomlinson. “That’s his life.”

Tomlinson became Meinschein’s caretaker, helping him around the house and tending to his birds, after responding to an ad three years ago.

She’s been taking care of one of Meinschein’s birds, a red and orange dusky lory named Fireball, since his fall.

Meinschein’s macaw’s, Chichi and Rojo, are staying at an animal sanctuary temporarily. Meinschein hopes to be out of the hospital in three weeks, before the macaws start picking their feathers out and showing other signs of stress. Macaws don’t like to be away from their owners for very long.

“The birds are very bonded to him,” Tomlinson said.

Meinschein still needs to put on more weight and do some physical therapy before he can go home. He hopes he will still be able to take care of his birds after he goes home, with Tomlinson’s help.

“Toni has been my caretaker for the past three years now, and she does a great job,” Meinschein said.

Two photographs are tacked up on a dry-erase board in the hospital room showing Meinschein at Newport Pier with Chichi and Rojo.

“I’ve got to have something to keep me going,” he said.