Timing

Thomas is dressed for work, ready to go this morning. He decided to do a quick neti pot to clear out his sinuses. Stella apparently decided that this would be the perfect time to demand head pets from him.What timing!

Shoulders

Blatantly disobeying our no shoulders rule, Stella continues to fly to Thomas. Though he makes her fly off almost as soon as she lands, she remains undeterred.I think she has an innocent look on her face, though she knows what she's doing is not acceptable!

Rocky in the back bedroom

This morning, we were eating breakfast in the kitchen. Rocky had been playing in the hallway when suddenly we realized that we hadn't heard him making any noise for a few minutes. That is never a good sign.

We suspected he was in a back bedroom when we noticed that a macaw-sized opening existed:Lately, he's been going in the back bedroom and then climbing on the clothes drying rack we have for out running clothes that can't go in the dryer:
This is so strange! Why would he prefer to be in the back bedroom, all alone, than with his flock? What is so compelling about the clothes dryer? The rack can't possibly be a comfortable perch for him -- look at how skinny it is!

After taking this picture, I left him alone and he came out to find us about 5 minutes later.

Adorable Beeps

Though my caiques have very few personality/behavior traits in common, one they do have is that they love swings. Beeps had been ignoring this swing for several weeks, but lately it's his favorite place to hang out.I find him so incredibly adorable when he's on this swing. I absolutely cannot resist him.

Playing with a toy while on the swing:Add in the beeping he was doing at the time (and all times when he's awake), and it's cuteness overload.

Tuesday night parrot interactions

Last night, the parrots were irritating each other with greater regularity than usual. Not surprisingly, most (all) of the encounters involved at least one grey.

Stella, in the process of chasing Max off of Max's cage:Max doesn't really mind, as she just flew to Calypso's cage. Stella didn't want her there, either, so she is about ready to chase her off of Calypso's cage as well:Max landed on the ground, safe from Stella, when she encountered Rocky:
All she wanted to do was chip his wood chips into even smaller pieces. After this initial confrontation, she moved a few inches further away from him, and that was fine.

And Stella threatening Calypso. On Calypso's cage. After taking this picture, I removed her immediately. He shouldn't have to deal with a bully:He's able to run her off the top of his cage, but this stance could only mean beaking each other, and no good can come from that. As much as I like for the parrots to work out their own issues, there are times when human involvement becomes necessary!

Butterfly

I was leaving work yesterday when I noticed a brightly colored movement out of the corner of my eye:
I think it's a butterfly, though it could be a moth. I found this page which distinguishes between the two, making me lean towards butterfly.

He mostly was resting with his wings together (more characteristic of butterflies than moths).
It was a nice way to start my evening!

Strange perching

Beeps was flying around the kitchen yesterday when he landed on a shelf the previous owners had put up for knick-knacks. What a funny guy! No one has ever tried to land there before.

Scenes from nest exploration

I've probably mentioned before that Rocky loves to open cabinet doors and other doors. We don't really like him doing this, because he sometimes take some wood off of the bottom of the door, and we do hope to sell this house someday!

Over the weekend, his penchant for opening cabinet doors benefited Stella.

First, I heard her banging her beak against something; it turned out to be the bowls in the cabinet. I grabbed the camera to see what she'd do next.I closed her in, to see if she'd try to come out, but she was happy in the dark cabinet. Since I do not want to encourage reproductive or egg-laying behavior, I took her out of here as soon as I took this picture.We found her in there one other time over the weekend, so now we have to be very careful about whether Rocky has opened up any of the doors.

Rope perches, 2

It doesn't seem like it took her a year, but according to the blog (unless I'm missing an entry), it took Max 13 months to destroy her latest rope perch.I would have guessed 6 months. I am a bad estimator -- good thing I can keep track here!

Grooming

Rocky and the greys got their nails done over the weekend. Rocky actually doesn't seem to mind his nails getting done -- he could easily bite Thomas if he wanted to -- but turns into the protector of the parrots when the Dremel comes out.As such, I couldn't get any pictures of the greys being done -- for his own safety, Thomas needed to do them behind a closed door. And to protect the door from being destroyed in Rocky's zeal to save the greys, I needed to be on the other side, entertaining him.

Luckily, Thomas is very fast, so this didn't take long. Everyone got a nut after, and was happy again. The caiques still need to be done; maybe this weekend.

Miscellany

Max, playing with scissors:*************************
As I was leaving for work this morning, I noticed a flash of yellow out of the corner of my eye. Goldfinch on the patio!
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I was at the rescue yesterday. Once again paying attention to the severe macaw that likes me. Here he is, climbing up my pant leg:
Take that, Rocky!

And, to be fair, here is the latest object of Thomas's affection:We are full. No room for anyone else. I have to keep repeating that to myself!

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Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Shower aftermath

This morning, I took the greys and caiques in the shower with me. This requires some juggling, as Max and Calypso will both try to attack Beeps occasionally. I just have to keep an eye on things, and realize that the shower might not be as relaxing as I would like it to be!

After I'm done showering, I toss the birds into the kitchen, where they usually fly onto stands. Today, Beeps apparently decided to land on a plant instead:Here are the three of them; Beeps in the plant and Max and Calypso on the stand:
When we're showering, I ask each one if they want to come under the spray; Calypso and Stella always turn down my offer (but I persevere; hoping they will some day accept). This morning, Max originally turned down my offer. Beeps always accepts. As soon as Max saw Beeps in the shower, she started begging to come in as well.

A wet caique:

More greys and asparagus

As soon as the fridge opens, Stella flies over. She doesn't appear to be interested in what's inside; she usually just beaks the appliance:Since we got fresh asparagus at the farmers' market yesterday, that was part of our dinner. Max was eating it first; of course, as soon as Stella realized Max was enjoying something, she can to come over.

In this picture, I'm not sure if Max is trying to get me to pick her up (more likely) or to get Stella away from her:
At some point, they nicely were both eating the asparagus:This didn't last for long, as Stella chased Max away. Then she started breaking off all of the tips, so I moved the asparagus to a bird free location!

Beeps and Rocky's Excellent Adventure

Every afternoon when I get home from work, I hear Beeps beeping while I'm still in the garage. Yesterday, the beeping seemed to be coming from the kitchen instead of the living room. I wasn't too concerned, until I went in the house to find this:Beeps hanging out on a stand in the kitchen! He should be in his cage! How did this happen? My initial guess was that Rocky had opened Beeps's food dish door earlier that morning and I hadn't noticed when I'd put them away for the day.

Until I heard the tell tale *click click click* coming down the hallway. Guess who else was out?Rocky had somehow figured out how to open his own food dish door:And then went over and let Beeps out as well:
I'm hoping that either Thomas or I just didn't close Rocky's door well and this was a one-time thing, or we will have to buy him another, more secure cage.

A thorough investigation of the house uncovered no damage. They (most likely Rocky) destroyed the newspaper under Stella's cage:
But they didn't take chunks out of cabinets, doors, or eat the wires on the lizards' cages. They didn't attack any of the caged parrots or each other. We were really lucky. I don't even want to think about the damage that would have occurred had it been the greys.

The only other funny thing is that Rocky went into the bathroom and opened all of the cabinet doors. The actual door was wide enough for a macaw to fit through, but not a human. It was an acrobatic exercise for me to get the cabinet doors closed enough for a person to enter, since the open cabinet doors impeded opening the real door any further.

I'm so curious as to how long the two of them had been out. Did they return to their cages at all to eat or to drink? Did they irritate the other parrots? It's times like these I wish I had a web cam on them!

Want some

This morning, I was cutting up the lizards' food, when Max started in demanding to be fed: "Want some! Want some!"I didn't think that she did, but when I gave her the scraps, she proved me wrong. I placed this in her cage today, stuffed with a couple of nuts, for a foraging adventure.

Whenever Max says "Want some!" even when I don't think she does, I try to accommodate her as we want her to realize that her words provoke action. Usually she proves me right and sticks her beak up at the apple, strawberry, or other item she doesn't like but still demanded!

What is going on? My worlds are colliding!

Though they are standing about as far away from each other as they can (and if you look closely, you can see that they are both slightly leaning away from each other!), what are these nemeses doing perched on the sink together?Later events, including a flying chase or two, would prove this to be an anomaly and not a representation of new found affection.

Calypso in the sun

Calypso was on his stand this morning, as usual. He loves to position himself on the stand such that he receives maximum sun exposure.
This morning, he did so while enjoying a strawberry:

When I'm gone

Last night I had dinner with some old friends, leaving Thomas alone with the parrots. This morning, he told me he'd taken a video of what they do when I'm not there. It looks a lot like what they do when I am there.



Note Beeps's body language at the end. He gets riled up when the camera is out. He is sending so many signals! Luckily Thomas recognizes them and moved out of the way before getting attacked.

Cider helper

When I got home from work yesterday, Thomas was brewing. Actually, he was bottling (a cyser) and racking (a trippel) and making cider. I'm not exactly sure if you "brew" a cider. I got home just in time to cap the cysers. A task that was made more difficult by curious greys investigating my work and a rouge caique who was let out of his cage by a certain severe macaw.

One thing I've mentioned before is how we try to involve the parrots in our activities, in a parrot-safe way. We were opening bottles of apple juice for the cider, so gave one of the caps to Max. She loved it!In fact, after he'd finished his work, Thomas decided to take a quick shower -- guess who followed him into the bathroom, with her toy?
Sorry for a posting delay. I didn't take many pictures over the weekend as I was not really in the mood. Thomas and I helped with an intake of over 40 abused/neglected parrots at the rescue where we volunteer. I went home and cried over the poor condition these birds had been living. My focus was then on spending time with my parrots and making them feel loved, rather then documenting their antics. Thomas almost took home a neglected lovebird ("He can go in Daphne's cage! We have the room!") but sanity (aka Me) prevailed.

One exciting thing that did happen is our pleco came out for a visit! This picture isn't the best, but you can see her eyes flashing a bit.We have gone over 14 months without seeing her, until we found her hiding place. Now, we check on her about once a week to make sure she's still there; however, during these checks, we can normally just see her bristles -- never her whole body like this!

Wednesday evening

Since Wednesday morning is when I go to the farmers' market, Wednesday evening means delicious salads!

As usual, dinner making time means excitement for our grey parrots! Max came over to examine the asparagus:She was more excited when I brought out the cheeses to shred:
Yes, she is perching on our salt shaker!Not surprisingly, Stella had to come over to see what Max was doing:Once the bowls were filled with lettuce, both greys had fun throwing lettuce on the counter and also licking water off of the lettuce:
Max also grabbed a mushroom:
The lettuce and mushrooms on the counter in the background are courtesy of the greys:On yesterday's post, The Homeless Parrot expressed some concern about Max eating garlic. I really appreciate it when people leave comments about ways I can improve my parrots' lives. I hadn't even considered the possibility that garlic could be dangerous -- I know it is recommended, in small quantities, in holistic parrot treatments, so wasn't concerned with Max eating it. However, allowing Max free access to all the garlic she likes is not small quantities! After doing a bit more reading on the topic, we will be restricting her access to garlic -- it's not worth the potential risk. Thanks for your comment and concern, HP, I really do appreciate it!