Caiques and greys and more retrieve

I wish this picture wasn't so backlit, but I'm posting it anyway! We have two large stands in the kitchen; the greys have claimed one and the caiques the other. For the most part, everyone stays an acceptable distance from everyone else and I can eat breakfast in peace.

I find it interesting that Stella is very watchful over what Max is doing. Stella keeps an eye on Max pretty much constantly. As I've mentioned before, they don't physically interact, but they seem to like being relatively close to each other. Thomas calls them the rogue flock since they fly into the kitchen and hang out on the stand together while everyone else is in the living room.

As I was closing in on the time I needed to leave for work, I put the greys in their cage so I could work on retrieve with Beeps without fear of being buzzed by a jealous Max. I think he's a day or so away from really getting it. He'll lean to the right to put the bead in the cup, but when I put the cup so that he'd have to lean to the left, he still leans to the right and gently releases the bead.

As we were training, Calypso was watching us closely and started making his begging posture and noises. He seemed to want to train, so I started teaching him retrieve as well. I think he had a good idea of what I wanted from him, as he gently placed the bead in the cup 10 out of 11 times. Since it was the first day, I didn't move the cup so that he'd have to lean at all -- the cup was right under his beak.

I've mentioned before on the blog that I have lower expectations for Calypso than I do for the rest of the flock. I'm still working on this! With him, moreso than with the other birds, I have this protective urge. I need to work on making sure I don't let my emotions get in the way of his learning and his happiness. I'll probably post on this more later once I have time to think about this issue and come up with steps to remedy it.