Caiques

Yesterday was my weekly trip to the farmers' market, and once again, my favorite farmer was selling strawberries. What a treat! As I was cutting them up to put on our salads last night, all of the parrots were begging. I can understand why -- strawberries are delicious! But when I went around to distribute the strawberries, everyone threw theirs on the ground, with the exception of Calypso. I don't think this guy has met a fruit (fresh or dried) that he doesn't love!

As I was changing the parrots' water dishes this morning, I came back to find a little goofball perched on the place where his water dish goes. He is just so curious, and makes me laugh. I don't even know how it's possible for him to be so adorable!
Beeps has been rather attacky lately, so we've had some discussions about impulse control (I don't think he understood them, though!) He launched at me three times last night when I was spraying other parrots with the water bottle, and launched at me the night before when I was clicker training Kika. Since he's a rather slow and noisy flyer, I was able to duck out of his way. For a few days, at least, he's going to have to go in his cage when I spray or train the other parrots.

One of the things that I love best about caiques is their fiery personality. I was reading an article about recovering parrots that were outside in a tree (I can't find it again or I'd link to it), and the author said to never bring out people or objects that the bird hates, with the exception of caiques. The best way to recover a caique in a tree, according to this article, is to bring out the object(s) of their derision and they'll get so angry at the object that they'll come down to attack and you can bring the caique to safety.

While I've been lucky enough to not have to test this, and am doing everything possible to make sure that remains the case, I think there may be some sense to that! All I'd have to do is show Beeps some technology or a broom and he'd come right to me!