Another compendium of parrot (mostly) antics

Several months ago, Thomas was sleeping on the couch after returning home from a 30-hour shift at the hospital. I may have written about this at the time. He let Rocky out of his cage to wander around, but kept everyone else caged. While it may seem unfair, the rest of the birds were fine with this. They'd play quietly in their cages. However, Rocky would have screamed, and he's nondestructive to the house, so Thomas took the risk.

He soon regretted that decision. Thomas was fast asleep, and Rocky climbed up onto the couch to be with him. Thomas awoke when Rocky deposited some regurgitation in his mouth. Yuck! I mean, I know it's a very thoughtful gesture, but not appreciated!

The reason I bring this up, is that a similar scene took place last Sunday. Once again, Thomas was resting on the couch after a 30-hour shift. I was sitting on the end of the couch, watching football and knitting. All of the rest of the birds were playing on top of their cages. Rocky had climbed up to be with Thomas. Then Rocky brought up a big batch of regurgitation and shook his head around so it got all over Thomas. Once again, he was not happy about this!

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Oranges are once again in season, which is pleasing to all of the birds. Here is Max, getting every bit out of the orange that she can. The caiques are particular fans. Calypso is a master orange juice extractor. I'm always amazed at how dry the remaining orange pulp is when he drops is to the ground after sucking all of the juice out.********************
It's a bit hard to see from this picture, but here is what I came home to yesterday. The plow had pushed more than a foot of heavy, wet snow on the bottom of my driveway. I couldn't drive in until I shoveled it out of the way, and even then almost got stuck in my own driveway. And it's only early December. Yikes!Also, as was the case last year, Thomas's on-call days have matched up with snowfalls, meaning I get stuck doing all of the shoveling. The meteorologists need only consult his schedule to know when the next snow will take place.

Accordingly, I skipped my planned workout yesterday and counted the shoveling instead.

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Beeps was allowed to be out of his cage during dinner last night and didn't try to attack me! That's the first time in about two months (as people eating is one of the things that triggers an attack). However, he was out this morning for about 10 minutes before his eyes started flashing red and he started posturing. He climbed into his cage and I closed him in there. He subsequently had a major hormonal freakout. And once again I am grateful that he feels them coming on and decides to go in his cage so as not to do something he'd regret. I have no idea how he taught himself to do this, but I'm sure glad he did!

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A video of Max with a feather on her head:


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Daphne does not like it when anyone touches her cage. She protests in her adorable budgie way. I'll try to get a video of this sometime. Of course, liking this reaction, Rocky will often climb up on her cage when he wants attention from us. We've made it difficult for him to climb up, but he is smart and persistent and has found a way around our attempts to block him.

Daphne is never in any danger as she is safe inside her cage (she doesn't cling to the cage bars where he could get her) and Rocky isn't bird aggressive. Also, she starts protesting the moment he's on her cage stand, so he's almost always removed before he gets up to her cage.

What a long introduction for this next story!

Earlier this week, I was in the middle of something upstairs. Thomas was with the birds in the living room. Daphne started protesting. Since this was going on a bit longer than usual, I assumed that Thomas had gone into the kitchen or basement for a few minutes and couldn't remove Rocky as quickly as normally happens.

I called down an empty threat, "Quit bothering Daphne or I'm making soup out of you!" to which Thomas replied, "Don't make soup out of me!" As it turns out, he was taking photos of the aquarium and, in the process, was nearer Daphne's cage than she likes. Rocky, surprisingly, was behaving perfectly on his cage.