Fake eating

This is something that I may have mentioned before. I know it's something that I've been trying to capture on video for a few months. This video isn't the greatest, but you can get an idea of what I'm talking about.

We first noticed Rocky's behavior of fake eating when he had been with us for only a few days. We were still in the honeymoon period, so I could offer him food from my hands and he would take it instead of trying to bite me, like he does now.

In an effort to offer our parrots more choices, when I eat mixed nuts, I usually take a handful and then offer them to the parrots, so each can pick their favorite (Max and Calypso always choose cashews. For Beeps, it depends on the day. He's been known to take all of the different nuts in the mix). I offered my hand to Rocky, and instead of taking a nut (we think he hadn't been exposed to them before), he made the motion as though he had taken the nut, then made a sound as though he were biting into an apple, and made chewing motions and sounds while "eating."

Since then, we've noticed that he does this pretty regularly. We get a kick out of it, so we usually laugh at him (which he loves), and we can sometimes get him to fake eat by asking him to do it. He does it when he's offered new food (does he think he's tricking us into believing that he ate it?) He does it when he wants to eat something that we have. Sometimes he fake eats Thomas, who has to remind him that he's a person and not food.

Earlier this week, he was watching Thomas eat and started in with his fake eating. I grabbed my camera and he obliged me by doing it again. Then you can hear him laughing at the end!

Snow update: it keeps coming! It's gotten to the point where it's dangerous to drive because there are giant snowbanks everywhere obstructing your views of the road. The next measurable snow is supposed to take place Sunday, when we'll be in Madrid. I am so looking forward to being somewhere snow-free!

This will be my last post for about a week as we're heading to Madrid and I won't have a computer. I'll post some pictures when I get back and update on how the animals fared while we were away (I am not too worried about this as we have a wonderful friend coming in to look after them and they survived our Prague trip well last fall!)