Updates on all who have been displaced due to my impending divorce

I have updates on everyone who has had to leave my house due to my impending divorce.  In order of their departure:

Stella is doing amazingly well.  Her vets visited her at home last week as they are friends with her owner and they just love her.  She is very lucky to have gone to an amazing home.  She is loved by her owners, by her flockmates (especially the severe macaw!), by her vets, by everyone!

Here is a picture of her on her new kitchen counter.  Isn't she as gorgeous as ever?

Rocky is up at the rescue, but doing really well.  He enjoys all of the activity and rarely screams.  He comes out on his stick and steps up for most people (still not me, though -- I must use a stick!)  He lives next to a female severe macaw, and the two of them have stuck up a friendship through their cages.

He sings, talks, and is having a great time.  What a resilient guy!  I hope to get him in a home soon, but severe macaws are difficult to place, so I'm glad he's somewhere where I can keep an eye on him until we find the right home.

A few pictures:

Saturday

I had a great morning!  I met one of my favorite running partners and we had a great chat for 2 hours as we ran.  I have signed up to do a 50 kilometer (31 mile) race in May, so I need to get out and do some longer distances than I have the past few months to train.  I ran 15.1 miles this morning, which put me at 40 miles for the week and allows for an extra beer with dinner tonight :)  I don't even want to contemplate what my mental state would be without running.

I have been trying to avoid Thomas as much as possible.  I stayed in bed until after he left for his run and I left for mine a bit early so I wouldn't be here when he returned.  Unfortunately, there's about a 0.2 mile section where I would be going out and he would be coming home that we could run into each other.  I mean, what are the chances?  100% in this case.  I just waved to him, as I would any other runner.  He has become someone that I used to know.

Then, I met my mom for lunch and some shopping.  We had a great afternoon!  I had a phone interview for a job yesterday (my current job ends on March 31) and found out that they want me to come in for an in-person interview next week, so I had to get a new suit, which my mom bought for me.  The last time I wore a suit was in 2003 and I'd already donated my old suits, thinking I'd never have to wear one again.  (You know...I put Thomas through medical school and then he allows me to follow my dream of going back to school or working or starting my own nonprofit.  I held up my end of the bargain...)  I also bought another pair of pants since I only had one pair that fit me, having lost weight due to the stress of my impending divorce.

I came home and spent some time boxing things up and getting ready to move more things to my parents' house.  I want to get down to just the essentials here in case Thomas gets violent and I have to quickly leave the house.  That's part of the reason I'm trying to get the animals placed as soon as possible, with smaller, temporary cages at my parents' house if Max and Calypso have to stay there until I get an apartment.

Almost real-time blogging; these pictures were taken about 30 minutes ago.  Thomas is currently out on a date with his married mistress; the parrots and I are enjoying an evening at home.  We hope he stays out until they go to bed and I go upstairs to my room.

Calypso, who does not realize his dreams are about to come true and he will soon be rid of Thomas forever:

Max, who knows something is up and has been extra loving to me in an attempt to reassure herself everything will be OK:

Basil, who returns to his home a week from today.  He loves his owners, so will be very happy to see them again.  The plan is for him still to be willed to me at some point.  I can't keep him now because he's too loud for an apartment, but by the time he needs to be rehomed, hopefully I will be in a house and he can come back to me:

Beeps, who is reacting to the stress in the house by being increasingly aggressive, but just to Thomas (and when he sees the camera, as usual):

I've gotten daily updates and pictures on Stella.  She is doing remarkably well in her new home.  She always seemed to want to befriend Max, but Max was not interested.  In her new home, Stella's grey companion, Ellie, appears to want to be friends, so we're hopeful things will go well.  Additionally, she lives with a severe macaw who loves greys.  When he was at the rescue where I volunteer, I'd take him around with me to greet the parrots.  He'd ignore everyone except the greys.  When we'd stop by a grey's cage, he'd blush a bit and say "hi!  hello!" and flirt a bit.  He's enjoying his little grey harem (from afar -- they don't physically interact, he just talks to them.)

Rocky is doing really well at the rescue.  I visited him on Thursday but forgot to take pictures.  He's housed next to a female severe macaw, and the two of them go to the bottom of their respective cages and interact.  I took him out and he seemed rather happy to see me.  He was talking, singing, and dancing.  He's extremely resilient and will be OK.  He's enjoying the activity of the rescue and I will be involved in finding him a great home.

Thomas has not asked about Rocky or Stella at all and has basically ignored the parrots we still have at home. It's so strange how someone can change so much, or possibly that they were able to hide for so long and then reveal their true self.  He fooled me for years, but now that I look back on things, they weren't as great as I thought they were.  I am doing some writing exercises to understand our relationship and heal.  One was to come up with 5 nice things he'd done for me over the course of our relationship and then 5 upsetting things.  I could only come up with about 3 nice things and stopped at about 32 upsetting things before I realized I was supposed to stop at 5!

I just rationalized and made excuses for a lot of his behavior.  I'm pretty sure he has a combination of narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder, so I'm pretty lucky to be able to get out and start anew.  It's just too bad that the parrots are affected by his behavior.

My friends, both online and in real life, have been amazing.  Even my massage therapist has been calling to make sure I'm OK and gave me his cell phone number in case I ever need to chat.  My mom and I have made tentative plans to go to Europe once the divorce is final (possibly with my dad and sister), and my favorite running partner is going to hook me up with one of her friends who loves to go birding and would like a companion.  2012 is going to be a fantastic year!

Sticky beaks

Last week, Basil had a down feather attached to his beak.  We joked he was dressing like Santa a month early:

I couldn't figure out which picture was my favorite, so I'm posting three of them!

Feather in motion:

There must have been something in the air, as Rocky got part of Thomas's dessert stuck to his beak that same evening (it's an oat):

I've got Basil's foot

Basil frequently says "I've got your foot" and I've known from talking to his owners that he'll hold on to their foot while saying this. He hadn't felt comfortable enough with us to do this; in fact, when I'd touch his feet (when he was hanging on to the cage bars), he'd scramble back down to the safety of his interior perches.

Until recently. Last week, he put his leg through his cage bars and grasped for my finger as he said "I've got your foot!" We stayed for several minutes like this. Here he is, holding on to Thomas's finger:

And this has become our new nightly routine:

Basil talks at night

I took this video last week, before the dark cloud of gloom descended on our house. For some reason, I can only upload one video per post when I upload from home (I can do multiple videos when I upload from work) so these videos will have to be in two posts.

Basil gets very talkative at night. The video is very dark since it's bedtime!

Thank you

Thank you to everyone for your kind and supportive comments about Brian.  It is really helpful.  When I posted what happened, I worried about receiving mean comments that would only make me feel worse (if that's even possible) -- you guys are the best.

I miss him so much!  He was such a special soul and I wish I would have had him for many more years, but I know I need to treasure the time I had with him.  I'm happy that I have so many photos and videos to remember him by.  I'll post some more in the future, when I'm feeling up to it.

I spent much of yesterday sobbing, so far today it's only been tears leaking out.  Luckily I have a very understanding boss and no customer contact!  I was even able to sleep through the night (after being unable to sleep Monday night), though most my dreams were about Brian.

I think one of the things that pains me the most is that I thought I had taken every precaution.  I've relived the experience hundreds of times in my head, and there's nothing that I would have done differently under the same circumstances. 

It's made me question whether I should ever own another budgie.  I can't imagine the rest of my life in a budgie-less existence, though I'm certainly not ready to add another one at this point.  The woman who runs the rescue suggested that I look into acrylic cages or other ways of adding an additional safety layer.  This is something I will have to look into in due time.  Right now it's still too raw.

Max and (surprisingly) Basil were very empathetic yesterday as I was changing their foods and waters in the morning.  Max would not leave my side and made frequent kissing sounds.  Basil kept softly repeating, "I love you Basil" which is what I tell him when I'm trying to comfort him.  They could tell something was wrong and were trying to cheer me up.

Anyway, I will try to get back to regular posting tomorrow.  Thanks again for your compassion -- it means a lot, more than I can express.

Bath time!

Since the floor was getting washed, we decided it would be a good time for the parrots to get clean as well!  Max loves getting sprayed, though she dries quickly with a shake and rarely looks as wet as the other birds:

Like Calypso.  He had to go and bath a little more in his water dish after I'd sprayed him, even though I'd completely drenched him:

Basil also joined in on the fun:

The rest of the parrots were uninterested, so we didn't force the issue.

In the kitchen

I think one of the reasons Calypso loves being moved to the kitchen is he gets many more treats than he did in the living room.  Just because he sees us with food, and since he's right there, we acquiesce.  Here he is, eating some celery that he probably wouldn't have gotten if he were still in the living room:

Thomas was washing the living room floor, so he moved all of the parrots' cages out his way.  This meant that Basil got to spend the afternoon in the kitchen.  He really enjoyed it there as well.  We'll definitely have to get an open concept floor plan in our next house!  Basil, with celery:

Max had flown into the kitchen, as usual.  I was making cookies, and from the start, she started dancing and saying "want some!"  She would not be deterred, even when all I had was flour in the bowl.  Yes, here is Max, eating flour!  What is wrong with her?  Who eats just flour?

Of course I removed her as soon as I took this picture.

Some recent questions

I had a few questions in the recent comments that I thought I might just address here instead of in the comments since it took me some time to finally get around to them!

phonelady asked: do greys just naturally get into everything ? sure sounds like they do from your gang

Of course I can't answer this for all greys since every parrot is an individual, but I do think that greys have the tendency to be very curious and intelligent and therefore get into everything, including trouble!  I must also add that when Max was a single grey, she did not get into nearly as much as she has since Stella arrived.  Because they are flock animals, I believe that the presence of another grey motivates them to explore.  I also believe that a big part of the reason why Stella transformed so quickly into a happy bird after her mutilation is the presence of Max -- even though they don't physically interact, I think that Max was a good role model for Stella.

Additionally, we encourage our parrots to explore and make their own choices as much as possible.  That, combined with the fact that they can fly, may make them more likely to get into things than an average grey who is clipped and may only come out of his cage a few times a month.  The fact that they frequently find food only reinforces this!

D. Richard asked: What if I may ask is the status of , Basil, Thought he would be home by now or do I not remember the proper dates ?

Officially, Basil is still just a foster bird.  He is willed to us, so we were expecting to have him full-time at some point, though we thought it would be decades yet until this happened.  Originally, he was just supposed to stay with us for a month or two, but it's not been nearly 10 months.  His owners aren't ready yet to officially sign him over to us, though I suspect that will happen soon.

Luckily, he is quite possibly the lowest-maintenance parrot I have ever met.  That's part of the reason I write about him so infrequently -- he's not doing many exciting things!  He has integrated well into our house, has learned our routines, and I think he's pretty happy.  I'd like to eventually get him playing with toys more frequently and stepping up nicely, but we have lots of time to work on that.

I do have a bit of guilt about keeping him, though if he is surrendered to us, he'll stay.  He took the last open spot in our house, which I'd been planning on using to foster birds for the rescue and adopt them out, like with Steve.  There's actually a (mutilating, seizure-prone so on meds twice a day, blind) grey at the rescue that I'd be fostering right now if it weren't for Basil.  It doesn't sit well with me that such an easy, low-maintenance bird is taking the place of someone who needs us more, but that's the way things are.

D Richard continues: I am no spring chicken myself and I am a little worried about what to do with my flock in any event . I was wondering after you sent a review of RIO . what do you think of my leaving money to have my flock released in their respective lands at least for the conures and lovebirds . Australia does not want the cockatiels back and the same with the quaker, Both considered agricultural pests . But do you have any thoughts ?  I don't have family or friends that would want them , Any of them

I am not aware of any programs that return former pets to the wild, but frankly, I'd be very hesitant to go this route.  While I do wish that all parrots could be wild and that we'd never brought them into our homes, I don't believe that those who've lived so long in captivity would possess the skills to survive and thrive in their native land.  I've read a bit about the work done by the Ara Project in breeding macaws to release in the wild, and spoke with a biologist doing that work in Costa Rica.  It's a lot of work to make sure that the bird is ready to live in the wild and won't just walk up to a human (to be recaptured) as that's what they know.  I've also read about work done by captive breeding programs by the International Crane Foundation (for cranes, obviously!) and was involved in helping to raise orphan baby wildlife when I volunteered at a wildlife rescue center, and I know they try very strongly to make sure that the animals will not associate humans with food.

That being said, if you can't find any individuals who will take your birds when you're no longer around, I think the best thing to do is connect with a parrot rescue to make plans.  This includes leaving money for them to be taken care of, possibly by means of an insurance policy.  This should help ensure that the facility will be able to take your birds when it's time (many rescues are currently full with long waiting lists for surrenders and this problem will only get worse every year.)  The good thing in your case is that your birds are smaller, so it should be easier to find someone to take them, even if it means they are split up.  It's very difficult to find a good home for a cockatoo or macaw.  I wish I had a better answer for you.

Basil plays with a toy!

To say that Basil doesn't really play with toys is an understatement.  I have tried so many different ones, but he has little interest.  However, he might be picking up on play a bit as we saw him playing with a ball on top of his cage!

Thomas called me into the room saying "Bring your camera, you won't believe what you see!" and he was right.

I'm not giving up, before long I hope I have a toy-destroyer on my hands.  Small progress.

Poor Calypso

Poor Calypso; once again, his hormones have overtaken him.  He has jumped Beeps a few times, and earlier this week, he jumped Basil, who weighs about three times as much as Calypso!  Luckily we were right there to break things up before any damage occurred.

We've temporarily moved his cage into the kitchen so that he doesn't have to constantly see Beeps and Basil.  This seems to be helping, though Thomas noted that Calypso might put on some weight in here as he insists on getting a bite of everything we prepare.

As always, we're hoping hormonal season passes quickly.  All he wants to do is be on me and fight the other parrots.  It's hard to strike the balance -- he needs attention, but I don't want to get him too worked up, either.

Odd sleeper

I'm not sure if I've posted a picture of this before or not, but Thomas and I were talking about it again this morning, so I took a picture.  Basil is the strangest sleeper ever!  All the rest of my parrots have a sleep perch -- usually the highest perch in their cage -- where they spend the night.

Basil, however, clings to his cage bars, on either side of a corner:

I can't imagine this is comfortable, at least not compared to a rope perch!  I must add that he spends his days perched on normal perches -- it's only at night when he goes to the cage bars.  Also, when he naps, he does so on a perch.

What a funny guy!

Basil loves veggies

Mr. Pea (aka Basil) continues in his pea-loving ways:

He's added summer squash to his list of favorite vegetables (though peas remain at the top):

Basil is such a good eater; perhaps only rivaled by Steve, in his willingness to try new food.

Rocky also ate the squash, but needed to threaten me.  He's only got one wing up, so not sure if this is a half-hearted attempt?

Mr. Pea

We can't get over how much Basil loves peas!  In fact, we've started calling him "Mr. Pea."  He gets so excited when he sees us with peas, and waits excitedly until we give him some.  He doesn't let any go to waste.

Luckily my favorite farmer had peas for sale this morning, so Basil will be happy for the next week or so, if I can ration them properly.  It's hard not to give him unlimited access, but peas by themselves are certainly not a balanced diet.

Basil and pellets

As reported yesterday, Basil continues to eat his Harrison's pellets.  In the morning, he'll go inside, grab a pellet, and then come back to his door to eat.

Just like with the peas.

Basil and the ball

I don't write much about Basil as he is very easy-going and doesn't get into trouble; therefore, he does not provide exciting material like the greys and Rocky.  I am planning on starting to clicker train him shortly, so I will probably chronicle that.  He is not hand tame, and I'd like to work with him to develop a stress-free way to move him around.  Right now, he pretty much stays on or in his cage the entire day, coming out when I open the door and going inside when I ask him to.

One thing that is very different about him than from my other parrots is that he tends to sit there (apparently content) and wait for something to happen, as opposed to initiating experiences.  If I place a foot toy on top of his cage, it will sit there for weeks; if I offer him that same foot toy, he will happily play with it, like he did with this ball:

I don't think it ever occurs to him to leave his cage, unless something scares him.  In that case, he flies circles around the room and lands back on his cage.  This is in opposition to my parrots who are almost always off exploring.

In another interesting departure from my parrots, when I offer them a toy, they almost always grab it with their beaks; Basil almost always uses his foot.  Then he'll bring it up to his beak:

He has gotten to the point where he'll take wood slices from the top of his cage and chip them up; he just hasn't yet applied that concept to other toys.

In other (but slightly related) Basil news, I had converted him to Goldenfeast Goldenobles pellets a few months back.  He loves them!  However, I recently found out that Goldenfeast was going to no longer produce this pellet.  I bought several containers in order to buy myself some time to convert him to something else, preferably Harrison's, since that's what the other birds eat.

I'd put Goldenobles, 3 Harrison's power treats, and 10 Harrison's pepper pellets in his cage every morning.  He'd eat all of the Goldenobles and leave all of the Harrison's.  One day, after filling his pellet dish, I offered him his dish while he was perched on his cage door.  To my shock, he grabbed (and ate) a Harrison's pellet.  He relished this pellet, so I expected he'd eat more during the day, but I returned to find a dish with 3 power treats and 9 pepper pellets remaining.  He still had only eaten the Goldenobles!

I continued this for a few days, with the same result.  Yesterday, I returned home and found that he'd eaten all of the Harrison's!  (I don't count the Goldenobles so I have no idea how many he ate.)  It's all or nothing with this guy!

Long trek

I gave Basil some peas the other day; he loved them!  I had placed them in the food dish on top of his cage; you can see it here (the gray dish):

Isn't that rainbow feather sticking out just amazingly beautiful?

I wish I would have gotten his walk on video -- he decided that he needed to eat his peas on his door instead of at the dish, so he walked all the way down while having to manage an unwieldy pea pod.

Looks like it was worth it:

And, since I got a picture of him without being attacked (cameras still provoke him), here's an unrelated-but-not-worthy-of-its-own-post picture of Beeps eating a cashew:

Enjoying life.

Product review - Baked Birdie Munchies: Cran-Blueberry

Last week, a representative from a bird product company called Caitec contacted me and asked me if I'd be interested in receiving some free samples of a newish food line to try on my parrots.  Of course I was interested!  I received a box with a sample of their pelleted diet, Oven Fresh Bites, and samples (in three flavors) of their treat product, Baked Birdie Munchies.

My parrots have frequently acted as testers for toy designs, but this was their first experience in the food-testing realm.

Of course, Max was right there when I opened the box.  Her sixth sense for parrot-items was activated and she flew to the chair, trying to eat through the plastic.  The fact that they look like little cookies couldn't have hurt anything!

Since I am bigger than her, I got the bag to safety and opened it up.  Since Max was already excited, she got the first bite; she wasn't disappointed:

Stella, who notices everything that involves Max, in her ever-vigilant crusade to make sure she's not slighted, immediately flew over to the stand for her own share:

I couldn't decide which of these pictures to post, so they're both going up here.  They took turns eating and looking at me:

They loved them!  Whenever they see the bag, they get so excited.  Even Thomas was amazed, "Why do they like this so much?" he kept asking.

After eating another one, Stella went down to the base of her stand to scarf up the crumbs:

Of course we did not forget the other parrots; they just didn't get as excited as the greys.  But they all loved the treat!

Basil:

Rocky:

Calypso (he's so adorable I had to post two pictures):

Beeps ate some, though he's been particularly camera-aggressive lately, so you'll have to take my word for it!

I probably should have waited to post until we'd tried all of the varieties, but I had so many pictures from the first, I decided to space it out.

I did do the ultimate test, which is to pit the treat against Max's favorite food of all time, the cashew.  I really thought the baked birdie munchie might win out, but ultimately, she went with the familiar cashew:

This is quite possibly because she'd already had several munchie pieces already that day but no cashews.  I will continue to experiment!

I did have one comment and one wish.  The comment is that, due to the consistency (which the parrots loved), they are quite messy.  You can get an idea from Stella's stand above.  Little piles of crumbs stood below where the parrots had been when they ate.  Since we are always sweeping up, this is no big deal, but just something I noticed.

And my wish.  I wish these came in different sizes.  They would be a perfect training tool, but they are very large.  When I gave one to the parrots to eat, I'd always break it in thirds or fourths.  I'd love to use these as a treat for clicker training, if they were smaller.  I may try using the crumbs to see how that works.  Stay tuned!

Over the next week or so, I will try the others with the parrots and record their reaction.  So far, so good.  We'll definitely be buying more of this!

Peaches

The peaches are ripe, so we've been overindulging.  The greys don't care for them, but everyone else is a big fan.

Basil:

Calypso (if you can find him, camouflaged as he is by his toys):

Beeps:

We get a case of peaches direct from the orchard (is that what it's called when it's peaches and not apples?) once a year, which means mad peach-eating for a week or so, and then we live a peach-less existence until the following year as we are spoiled by these delicious peaches and can't stomach the ones from the grocery store.  Yes, we are major peach snobs.

As of this morning, we had 36 peaches left.  We put many of them in the fridge to slow their ripening, but we will still be eating a lot this weekend, which will make the non-grey inhabitants of the household happy!

Wood

I don't think I've mentioned anything about this for quite some time, but wood slices are one of my favorite parrot items, ever.  An untreated 2X4 pine provides many, many hours of entertainment.  If you have access to a saw and have some skills, they are one of the cheapest and most entertaining items for birds that I've been able to find.  Sometimes I drill them and hang them on wire, but frequently I am lazy and give them to the birds as-is.

Thomas slices them in various widths; the littler guys get more thinly-sliced wood:

I hide a bunch in Calypso's cage every morning and return home to a pile of wood chips.

Even Basil, who doesn't really play with toys (we're working on him!) loves them:

We leave a basket full of them out at all times for Rocky.  When he wants to chew, he wants to chew.  If nothing acceptable is around, he'll use the fishtank, baseboards, or other unacceptable substitutes.  By providing him with easily accessible acceptable wood, everybody wins!