EASTHAMPTON — You think you know someone after living with them for almost 17 years. And then they go and lay an egg and suddenly, things have changed.

Sandy Gallant, 79, had the shock of her life last weekend when Larry Bird Bird, a blue crowned conure, became Lar.

“This is the biggest surprise I’ve had in my whole life,” she said.

Gallant, a lifelong Easthampton resident, owned the Bloomsbury Bed & Breakfast before moving to her current residence at the John F. Sullivan Housing for the Elderly.

Lar has been with Gallant and her nearly 23-year-old cat, Puca, a short-haired American tiger cat, for years without incident, but that changed Sunday when Larry Bird Bird revealed her true identity.

Gallant purchased Lar from Crystal Parrot as a young bird and always believed Larry Bird Bird was male.

“This is really Loretta, not Larry,” she said after the egg-laying incident.

Before she was able to take the bird home, Gallant visited Larry Bird Bird multiple times a week for five months.

“He was feisty from day one and I liked that,” Gallant said.

She decided to call the bird Larry Bird Bird after the former Boston Celtics forward. Not only does the newly named parrot have similar coloring to the team’s uniforms, but the bird was born in Massachusetts and has the personality to match.

“He has the personality of a basketball star – very aggressive and feisty,” Gallant said, still referring to Lar as a he. “His way or the highway.”

Before Larry Bird Bird became Lar, Gallant said the bird gave her a lot of grief and stress in the last few weeks.

“I didn’t know it was pregnant,” she said. “I thought the bird was dying.”

Gallant spent a lot of time in the weeks leading up to the discovery holding the bird, singing to it and “talking silly nonsense.” Lar had a hemorrhage in the weeks leading up to the egg laying and the emotional stress made her “very beaky, defensive and lethargic,” Gallant said.

On Sunday, she laid an egg.

“While I was fussing around the cage, lo and behold there was this little white thing,” Gallant recalled.

Shocked by its appearance, Gallant said it took her a few moments to realize it was an egg. After she figured it out, Gallant said she called Edna Bresnahan, owner of The Crystal Parrot in Southampton.

“I called her and said, ‘you’re a grandmother,’” Gallant said. “When I told her, she was hysterical. She really couldn’t believe it.”

Reached by phone Friday, Bresnahan recalled the conversation with Gallant.

“She called up one day and said ‘I think the mystery is solved. He laid an egg,’” Bresnahan said.

Although Larry Bird Bird laying an egg was quite a shock, it’s not uncommon for her breed as Bresnahan said it is currently breeding season.

Not all female birds lay eggs, according to Bresnahan. In fact, her own bird, a 19-year-old African grey parrot, has never laid an egg.

Only time will tell if Lar will lay another egg, although Gallant is hoping she won’t because of all the stress it caused.

These days, Gallant is working on switching her perception and adjusting to calling Larry Bird Bird a she.

One thing hasn’t changed, though: her love for that colorful, feisty bird.

“They (Lar and Puca) kind of run my life but they give me a purpose,” she said. “There is structure and stability and I couldn’t imagine not having them.”

Emily Cutts can be reached at ecutts@gazettenet.com.

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