Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Tuesday evening

I got home a few minutes before Thomas last night, so all of the parrots were out when he came home from work. The greys always fly right over to him to welcome him; yesterday, Beeps joined them. He landed on Thomas's back pants pocket:He then started climbing his way up Thomas's back, but I removed him before he got very far. Beeps is unpredictable at times and we do everything we can to prevent a facial bite!
We were cooking, or rather Thomas was cooking. I did try to help, but Beeps and Max were extremely needy last night. Beeps, in particular, would not leave me alone. I'd place him on a stand, and he'd immediately fly over to me. Since he spends so much of his day (when I'm at work) in his cage, I didn't want to cage him -- I figured he was telling me he wasn't getting enough attention. Max, who is usually more independent, started being just as needy as Beeps. I suspect this was less that she wanted to spend time with me and more that she didn't want Beeps (her nemesis) to have me to himself.

With a parrot on each arm, I couldn't accomplish much. Luckily, Thomas picked up the slack so we ate dinner at a decent time.

One of the few times Max flew off of me was when she spied garlic cloves on the counter. Here she is, perched on my cookbook, eating garlic that was supposed to be for the recipe (don't worry, we had extra!):
Finally, I found that Beeps would perch on the green stand for about 5 minutes before leaving to find me. We keep all of our plastic bags in a bag attached to our pantry (and bring them to the store to recycle them when it's full). I had opened the pantry door to grab something, and Beeps grabbed a plastic bag to chew on! I didn't want him to accidentally eat any, so I grabbed the bag away and gave him a piece of wood instead.
After dinner, we were in the living room. Rocky has been hanging around, on, and under the food cart. He is so strange!

5 comments:

Elizabeth said...

I love pictures of birds climbing up people. It always looks like they climbing Mount Everest. just...one...more...step!

The Homeless Parrot said...

About the garlic - I have no idea if this has been found to be true in birds or not - but it can cause profound anemia in dogs and cats. It is on the list of no-no foods. I'm not sure that anyone has ever checked this out with the avian species, but I would be cautious.

Mary said...

Elizabeth -- isn't it the cutest? I will have to get Beeps on video sometime as it is completely adorable.

HP -- thanks so much! I did write about this in today's post and Max will be restricted from garlic. From my searching, it appears it's beneficial in small quantities, but it sounds like no research has been done to quantify what is considered safe. Better safe than sorry, IMO, so she'll just have to risk vampires :)

Pamela said...

Regarding garlic: the Feeding Feathers group suggests that garlic doesn't affect birds the same way it affects dogs and cats. There was one story of a bird dying after eating garlic - but a necropsy showed that a whole clove was stuck in its gullet. So, in small quantities, it isn't a problem, and is even recommended occasionally.

Feeding Feathers is organized on Yahoo! Groups (so you have to join to get information), but they're big on organic foods, grains/legumes/vegetables, and everything in moderation. The people there really seem to know what they're talking about. You could certainly join, and get more details about the garlic issue.

Scritches.com said...

I love, love, love seeing Rocky walk sideways and backwards!