Thursday, November 20, 2008

A great night for Rocky

Today's post is Rocky-filled, so get ready for more of him than I'd ever wish on anyone.

As I briefly mentioned in yesterday's post, Thomas has been a little sick for the past few days, but was feeling much better yesterday. In fact, he was feeling so well that he got a bit giddy about it, which encouraged Rocky to be wacky, and it turned into a vicious cycle of encouraging each other to do wacky things.

I wish I would have started taking this video a few seconds earlier. Rocky was walking around on the table, when Thomas jumped on him (being careful not to hurt him, of course).


Later on, after dinner, Rocky climbed onto the couch with us for some attention.

He hung out in the hood of Thomas's sweatshirt for a few minutes:
And he went on his lap and started rolling around:Thomas was holding him and said, "Can you believe we didn't even know each other 5 years ago?" I think it's pretty amazing when you think about it. They met when Rocky was 19 and Thomas was 29. They've only lived together for a little over two years, yet they have one of the strongest parrot-human bonds I've ever seen. Yet another example of the amazing resiliency of parrots.

Thomas will occasionally make Rocky fake talk, like in this video. He had done it several times before I filmed, with Rocky telling me how much he hated me. I asked Thomas to have him say something appropriate for the blog (i.e. nothing mean about me), and, in doing so, I found out who Rocky would have voted for in the recent election:


Rocky's laugh is infectious and contagious. We'd been doing a lot of laughing last night. Not only because Thomas was in such a good mood, but also because "The New Adventures of Old Christine" was on.

I didn't want to post this video since my laughing is in the background, in the beginning. Note that that's not my real laugh -- it's the laugh I use to encourage Rocky to laugh. But, Rocky got going at the end, so I'm posting it. Not for the first time do I wish I had video-editing skills!

Since I hadn't wanted to put the above video on the blog, I made another video, hoping to catch him laughing again. The first few seconds of this start out slow, but then it picks up once Thomas starts giving him the business.

As always, I feel the need to offer a disclaimer to those people who may be stopping by for the first time. Thomas and Rocky have a very special relationship. They are two peas in a pod and very attuned to the other's body language. They both really enjoy the physical relationship they have with each other. However, I cannot recommend that most people do similar things with their own parrots. Most parrots do not enjoy the things in these videos. If he did many of these things with any of our other 5, he'd end up with angry parrots and bloody hands.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I dunno if it's my computer or just blogger, but these videos just WOULD NOT WORK for me today! It'd play one second, then freeze. =(

Mary said...

Sammi -- I have no idea what's going on. I tried them again and they worked for me, and they also worked for my husband at work.

I know BP was having trouble with one yesterday but it just took a long time to load.

Sorry about this :(

Scritches.com said...

What do you use to take these videos? It appears to be very easy for you, which is what I'd be looking for.

Mary said...

BP -- In April 2006, we bought a Canon PowerShot A630. That's what I use for all of my pictures and videos.

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=145&modelid=14108

It's super easy. There is a little dial on the top, and I just turn it to movie mode when I want to take a movie. I just click the button like I'm taking a picture to start recording a movie, and click it again to stop.

I'd imagine other cameras have this feature as well, and now's probably a good time to be looking, with Christmas sales and all!

Anonymous said...

I got the videos to work and AHAHAHAH OH JEEZ! Rocky being tickled was GREAT!

DoodleBird said...

That last one is great! Looks just like nani playing except those sounds coming out of him are scary. teeheehee

Mary said...

Sammi -- so glad it finally worked for you. I have no idea what's going on!!!

Doodlebird -- Thomas has tried doing that with Beeps, but he is not a fan, so he flies away. How fun that you got Nani doing that so early!!!

Mary said...

That last video is amazing. What a neat bond they have!