Clementines! We also bought a box of Darlin' Clementines from Trader Joe's. They are so delicious! The peel comes right off, and there are no seeds! The parrots all know what's in the box, so they get very excited when we go to that area of the kitchen.






Here are some pictures of the caiques eating their clementines. Calypso if the fluffier one and Beeps is the wetter one.





And of course, a couple of videos! Max and Calypso eating their clementines.









I hardly have any videos of Calypso because he often freaks out when I get the camera near him. However, he also freaks out while eating his first clementine of the day, so I thought I'd capture his freak out! He does this squeal when he gets very excited about things: beloved foods, warm foods, cold foods, baths, etc. It sounds like he's in distress, but he also does it when he's happy.

I should mention that the music in the background is by the band Bowling for Soup. This is Beeps's favorite band. The other parrots also enjoy their music, but Beeps LOVES them. They were in town a few weeks ago and we contemplated smuggling him in to their concert, but then just decided to listen to their CDs instead.

I finally uploaded my videos of the past weekend to youtube, so here are a few funny ones revolving around Rocky and his nest.

He spends a lot of time under his cage. When I call him, he'll come to the front and look at me, but then goes back under. Here is one sure-fire way to get him to come out: mess with his towels. A few months ago, we realized how important the towels were to him. We were eating dinner in the living room and I had grabbed one of Rocky's towels to use as a barrier between my legs and a hot bowl of soup. He did not stop screaming during our entire dinner. When I was done eating, I threw his towel on the ground, and he RAN to it -- we then understood why he'd been screaming!


And what does he do with these towels? The video below shows what he spends most of his time doing with them. He also likes to bring them to different areas of the room and then play with the towels some more.

The cherries have been fantastic around here lately. Unfortunately, most of the parrots will not eat them -- they throw them out of their bowls, but Rocky loves them! He saw Thomas with a bowl and climbed up into his lap to have some. It kind of looks like Thomas is bashing Rocky in the head, but that's just the angle on the photo!

I took this video and thought it was pretty funny -- look at how much he is loving the cherries! He left little macaw cherry footprints all over Thomas's shorts.

According to many different parrot publications, there are certain foods that are toxic to birds. Generally, parrot owners are told to stay away from avocado, onions, chocolate, alcohol, and caffeine. We try to provide our parrots with as healthy of a diet as possible, but Max is trying to make that difficult!

She lately has become obsessed with onions. That's right -- one of the food items she's not supposed to eat. For years we've kept our onions in an onion bowl on the island in our kitchen. But apparently those onions have become irresistible to Max over the past few weeks. We'd hear crunching in the kitchen and find her unpeeling the onions! We've since removed the temptation and placed our onions in a parrot-proof area.

Right before this picture was taken, I changed the garbage then threw out all of the onion skins she'd peeled. I reenter the kitchen a few minutes later to find out that she had gone to the bottom of the garbage, pulled out an onion peel, and started destroying it! We know one of her favorite things to do is pull trash out of the garbage and throw it on the floor (like a giant foraging toy), but we really thought it would be safe at the bottom of the can. I underestimated the allure of those onion skins!

She has suffered no ill effects from her obsession and we have taken steps to make sure this won't happen again!

I'm not sure what Max was planning on doing when she got into my wallet, but I caught her before she did any damage!

Last time she went through my purse, she came across a $20 bill (I very rarely carry any cash, but the time I did, she found it!) Luckily she just did a bit of damage to it, and I was still able to spend it, but I did worry about having a bird high on drugs as I would imagine in a body that size it wouldn't take very much, and so much cash has drug residue on it.

Rocky's still nesting! I think I've been discussing this a lot because it fascinates me. None of my parrots have been big nest-builders before Rocky, and his determination amazes me.

Here is a picture of him in the beginning stages of building his nest. Note that he has his 2 special towels near him and has begun to rip up the newspaper that we lay on the ground to protect our floors from their poop:

This is what is looks like under his cage after about 3 days of making his nest. I usually let him build for a few days, then I sweep up and he starts over again. Those towels are still in there! He has to be locked in his cage when I sweep up his nest and as soon as he is out, he starts shredding fresh newspaper and wood pieces. I have a few videos I'll add in another post.

Nesty

Rocky has been extremely nestly lately. A few months ago, he started building a nest for him and Thomas in our newspaper recycling bag. He must have gotten upset with the fact that we would then recycle the newspapers and he'd have to start over, as he then built them a nest under our kitchen table. Being the good sport that he is, Thomas would occasionally join Rocky under the table, delighting this little macaw.

A few months ago, we bought Rocky a larger cage. He doesn't really use the interior space, but he loved the fact that this new cage went almost down to the ground, and decided to build his nest there. Can you see him below? I really did sweep very well about 10 minutes before this picture was taken!

This is what he did with a 2X4 slat in about 10 minutes. Most of this chipping was done with the 2X4 resting on Thomas's feet!

Here is a video of Rocky emerging from his nest. That's him laughing in the background. He often goes into his nest and makes strange noises, including laughing like a maniac. You'll notice I had to cut the video off abruptly -- he noticed me on the ground and decided this would be a great time to pounce!

I bought this scooter a few months ago, determined to teach someone how to ride it! So far, all 4 of my bigger birds have resisted by attempts. I have not given up on them and hope someday to use clicker training to get them to learn to ride like a pro.

However, Daphne is prefectly happy to perch on it, so I guess it wasn't a total waste! Of course, she is much too small to get this size scooter to move! But the picture was so adorable, I had to take it.

Budgies often are considered throwaway pets in our society. That's so unfortunate because people are really missing out on these little gems! She has such a fantastic personality and is a little treasure, always brightening my day!

I thought I had a macaw?

Sometimes Rocky likes to cover his head with his wing and spy on us. His eye kind of looks cloudy in this picture, but it must just be the flash.

Thomas and I joke around with him and say things like, "We thought we had a macaw! But we can't see him anywhere!" Rocky then laughs with delight and uncovers his head.

The funny part is that when he "hides," he always makes sure that he can keep one eye on me -- his nemesis. He actually is quite obsessed with keeping tabs on his human flock and will search the house calling out our names if he doesn't know where we are.

Max needs to recharge her batteries

Aah! I can't believe it's been a month since my last post. Now that I've gotten through all of the history, I can start doing funny day-to-day stuff that comes to mind. And I'll try to post more frequently.

A few weeks ago, I returned from my morning run, parched. I poured myself a glass of Gatorade and drank most of it. Then I woke up the birds and showered with Max and the caiques. As per my usual routine, I brought one of the birds upstairs with me as I got dressed and left the rest downstairs for a few minutes on their stands.


I came downstairs to find this! Poor Max was so thirsty, she had to drink my Gatorade! Nevermind her fresh bowl of water in her cage. You can see that her back is still wet from the shower.


Max is so inquisitive; she always keeps us on our toes. She has knocked over plastic glasses that were not strong enough to carry her weight, so I'm glad this at least was a glass!


Sometimes Thomas and I joke that it might be nice to have one of those greys that it afraid of everything. But we are only kidding as we love our adventurous girl who keeps us entertained with her new escapades!