12 hours of parrot fun

I don't have pictures, but quite a few funny things happened during a 12 hour span at our house. Thomas had to attend a training session last night for work, which meant I was alone with the parrots in the evening. I'm not sure if the greys see Thomas as the protector of the caiques and Rocky or what, but both greys buzzed the other parrots several times until they had to go in their cages.

Rocky, of course, was sad that Thomas wasn't there. We all stayed up a bit later than usual since I was putting some finishing touches on toys for birds up at the rescue and wanted to get that done. At one point, I looked over at Rocky and he had put himself to bed, even stretching out to close the door on himself.

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Thomas got home around 9:30, about 2 hours after the parrots went to sleep. We sat down to a late dinner, and Thomas decided to get Rocky out since he hadn't spent much time with him that day. When he went over to his cage, Rocky was hanging on the side, begging to come out, but his behavior after he was out was different! He was so sleepy. He climbed down off of Thomas's lap and hung out in the middle of the kitchen floor (which Thomas reminded him was not a good place for a sleepy prey animal), then he climbed up on the plant stand and almost fell asleep. Thomas promised not to wake him up again.

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This morning, I was in the living room feeding the animals. Thomas was getting ready for the morning, the greys were in the kitchen, and the rest of the birds were in the living room with me. I hear a big THUD and come into the kitchen to ask Stella what she'd thrown to the ground (one of her favorite things to do). I hear Thomas laughing and saying, "I just got you in trouble, Stella!" as it was he who had thrown a shampoo bottle towards the recycling bin. This is not the first time he's done something that I originally had blamed on a parrot.

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After he got ready, he came into the living room and asked what still needed to be done in order to get the animals ready for the day. I was still wrapping the greys' pellets and had fed everyone else, so I told him that just the waters remained. When he got Rocky's water out, he left the door open. I pointed that out to him, and Thomas replied, "I know. I like to boost his self-esteem by allowing him to sneak out the side of his cage because he thinks he's outsmarting me. I'm really setting him up for this, though." When we discussed this later, Thomas told me when he thinks Rocky really needs a morale boost, he unlatches the food dish door (with no dish in it) but does not open it since Rocky will still come out, but it's harder and therefore more of an accomplishment.

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Finally, we were getting ready to leave; all of the parrots were in their cages except for Max. I was hiding her pellets in her cage when Thomas brought her by; I told him it would just be a few seconds. He says to Max, "Are you memorizing where she's putting your pellets so you don't have to look so hard for them?" I told him that defeated the purpose of foraging and suggested he turn around so that she didn't get a sneak peak at the hiding places :)