Short stories

St. Nick brought nuts to our house. Thomas placed them in this container on the table, and the parrots have been helping themselves. Rocky did have a nut in his beak, but he dropped it when he saw me approaching with the camera. Note the nut dust around his feet.
Stella also has been helping herself, especially to almonds. She and Max have developed a symbiotic relationship, since Max likes playing with the empty almond shells. She watches Stella, waits until Stella drops the nut shell, and then Max swoops in and takes her treasure to a place where she can play with it.

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Yesterday, I was in the kitchen with the greys. Stella was following Max around and had her pressed up against the end of the perch. Instead of flying away, Max gave the sign for Stella to back off. Stella ignored this, jumped on Max, and had her pinned down on the bottom of the stand. This happened in about one second. I had been on my way to pick Max up once it became clear Stella wasn't backing down, and Stella had her pinned before I could make it to the stand. I broke up the fight and no one was injured. Stella did have to go to her cage to cool down.

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Max said her first three-syllable word earlier in the week. She said, "Hello everyone!" which is what I say to the birds when I come home. Actually, my full phrase to them is "Hi little dudes! Hello everyone!" but Max only said the second half. She said this to me as I emerged from the basement while she was in the kitchen.

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As I mentioned in an earlier post, we spent Christmas with my parents. We leave on Christmas Eve, spend the night, and return early Christmas Day. The parrots end up spending about 18 hours alone. We don't like doing this, but it's tradition to do it once a year, and they survive. Also, we do not leave the house for the rest of Christmas day, so they end up getting a lot of attention.

Beeps saw me packing a few things, flew over, and viciously attacked my head. The next day, while unpacking, he did the same thing. He really doesn't like us to leave!

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I hope that everyone has had a great week! Between the holiday and the snow, I was not in to work very often, hence the break in posts. And now it's the weekend again! It will be very nice to get into a routine again.