Madhouse

Thomas had to work late last night, which meant I was alone with the parrots for a few hours after work. As usual, everyone was let out of their cages. One by one, everyone got locked away, with the exception of the caiques. Here's why...

Daphne kept flying from the kitchen (where we were) into the living room to her cage. I can't leave her unsupervised since she's so much smaller than the other parrots and they could hurt her. She really likes her cage and will often spend time inside her cage even when her door is open.

Rocky constantly screamed until his cage door was shut. I do not understand this! He could have just gone in his cage -- why did the door need to be closed for him to stop screaming? When will his hormones calm down? He's driving me nuts!

Max flew three times in a row right into my head. She knows how to fly, so this is obviously intentional. Plus it's rather hard. I can hear the air getting knocked out of her. I can figure out no pattern to these kinds of "attacks." I put attacks in quotes because she doesn't try to bite, she just flies into my head and then returns to her stand. Often to say "good girl!" as she lands and then launch again at me. From experience, I know the only way to stop this is to distract her. As I was cooking and unavailable to distract her in other ways, she went into her cage.

Stella's reason for going to her cage was the most bizarre and I really wish I would have been able to videotape this. First, she flew over to the closed spice cabinet, hovered in front for a second, and then flew straight up, hitting her head on the ceiling. She bounced off of the counter and landed on the table. I asked her what was going on, and she returned to her stand. Then, she launched herself at the spice cabinet and hit it pretty hard. Finally, she did that again. I was getting concerned that she might hurt herself, so she also went into her cage.

The caiques and I had a grand time -- they watched as I prepared dinner. Is it possible to be in a bad mood when there is a joyful caique around? Dinner took longer to prepare than usual because they were being so adorable I was constantly stopping to play with them.

When Thomas came home, he immediately went into the living room to let Rocky out. He greeted Max, but wasn't planning on letting her out. However, she made this adorable (and seldom-heard) sound so he let her out to reward this. Then, Stella made the exact same sound -- we had never heard her make that noise before. So she got out as well. There were no repeats of the strange flying behavior by the greys and I fear Thomas may think I made it up!

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!