Clown loaches

I narrowly avoided either old-fashioned hilarity or a potentially injurious fall upon exiting Thomas's car to go to lunch yesterday.
Seriously? Who leaves a banana peel in the parking lot? I thought that was the myth of cartoons and old British comedy.

The most exciting news in parrotland, although I don't have any pictures, is that Stella is flying well. She still doesn't voluntarily take flight, but she must have flown in a previous home, or at least fledged, as she knows how to navigate and land. This makes my life easier, as I can launch her from the kitchen and tell her "go to your cage" and she does, saving me a trip.

If you were in our living room right around dinner time, you'd think I had some sort of parrot cannon as I launch Beeps, Max, and Stella into the living room, keeping my hands free for bringing in dinner or the non-flying parrots.

I've read about the supposed stress-relieving benefits of aquariums, but mine can be stress-inducing. I worry all the time about providing the best possible home for all of the animals in my care, including the finned ones.

Last August and September, we decided to add some clown loaches to our tank. We purchased three from the most expensive fish store in town, but two died soon thereafter. These guys need to be in groups of at least three, so we went to another store and bought two more. They've all survived, but the two from the chain store pal around and often leave the one from the fancy store alone. Additionally, although they were all about the same size when we got them, the two from the chain store have grown considerably and are now more than twice the size of the little guy.

Yesterday was a rare sighting of all three out at the same time. The little guy is on the bottom of this picture, just to the left of center. The larger, silver fish are some of our Australian Rainbowfish -- the ones who had babies. The three babies are still doing well!

Here is a little video of them swimming around. It really can be nice to sit and watch, but I have to be careful to not stress out about their interpersonal relationships!

Max and food

Most of the Max stories I post seem to involve food in some way, and today was no exception. You would think we starve her for the foraging she does around our kitchen!

First, Stephanie had asked last week whether Max ever eats any of the greens or just plays with them. While I'm still not sure of the answer for raw greens, we found out that she absolutely loves cooked greens! Of course, this could have something to do with the fact that they were sauteed in olive oil and garlic! You can see her eye pinning. Not sure why it looks like we have red lights on. We do not live in a disco!
Beets, on the other hand, she wanted no part of. Thomas was rather disappointed since he loves them. I tend to side with Max on this vegetable, but am trying to get myself to like them since they are healthy!
Here she is, licking the water off of a peach, just like she's previously done with strawberries and apples. Like those other fruits, she will not eat them. But as soon as I put one on the counter to prepare, she flies over and starts licking the water.
I've mentioned before that when the rest of the family is in the living room, she'll sometimes fly into the kitchen and hang out alone. We find this rather strange, but usually allow it, listening for clues that she's left her stand and looking for trouble. Apparently we missed the sound of her flying over to the kitchen island (where she almost never goes).

I tried to get a picture of her in the middle of her crime, but she apparently wasn't proud of destroying the bananas, as she wouldn't stay by them:
As proof, though, you can see her banana beak:
Thomas was taking pictures of Daphne hanging out in the plants over the weekend, and captured some nice ones. I like the way that you can see the purple hue she has in this first one.
Another Daphne picture. She looks fat, but that's her English budgie genes! There's a little bit of red above her cere. I was wearing lightly tinted chapstick when I gave her a kiss -- oops!
I wish I knew how to edit videos, as Thomas, shirtless, encroached into my movie towards the end. Sorry about that! We're trying to keep our power bills low this year by not keeping our house too cool and instead dressing skimpily around the house.

In any case, in this video, Daphne is exploring one of our plants. She is so curious and playful!

Not parrot-related, but I ran across this really fun website via links on another blog. It's called Pandora Radio, and the tag is "Radio from the Music Genome Project (R)" It's free, although free registration is recommended.

You type in an artist, composer, or song that you like, and the website customizes a radio station for you by streaming music. Also, no commercials! Then, it plays songs that are similar to what you like. You can rate the songs it plays to customize what you want to hear even more. It gives you information about the songs, including a link so you can buy the CD if you want.

I had been getting kind of tired of listening to the songs on my itunes lately, so this has expanded my songs -- and it's all free!

My thoughts on budgies...

In my continuing series of writing about the birds sharing their lives with me (see my entries on caiques and timnehs), I move on to one of the parrot world's under appreciated jewels: budgies.

In my adult life, I've been lucky enough to share my home with 4 different budgies. Lenny and Jeff Saturday were not tame, and Ethel and Daphne were. Is there anything sweeter than a tame budgie?

Daphne (pictured at left) is the only one still around. Budgies tend to have relatively short lifespans, due in part to the fact that they are tumor-prone caused by inbreeding. Daphne is at least 4, and half-English (who tend to have shorter life-spans) so we optimistically hope to have at least 6 years left with her.

In my opinion, budgies are extremely underrated. There are many reasons for this. They are relatively inexpensive, so are easily purchased as impulse buys. They are relatively easy to breed, so there is an overabundance of them in captivity. Many people have memories of bitey, scared, cage-bound budgies from their youth, so immediately discount having one as an adult. There is a misconception that they don't have personalities, or that they are boring.

Nothing could be further from the truth! A hand-tame, friendly budgie is such a delight! And even not tame budgies can brighten up someone's home with their cheerful chattering.

Ethel (pictured below) was the first tame budgie who lived with us, and she opened our eyes to what they can be. She immediately fell in love with Thomas and followed him everywhere. She was very intelligent and could figure out rather complex problems. She had a fiery personality and made sure things were just how she wanted them. She loved playing with toys and learned to imitate Calypso's call. In the days after her death, our house was eerily silent without her chirps.

We had just over a year with Ethel, and even now, more than two years since her death, tears are rolling down my face as I think about how much I miss her.

Budgies make wonderful pets in houses with gentle children. Although they can bite, it's hard for a budgie to do serious damage. Their tiny feet can be just the right size to perch on a child's finger. They also fit more smoothly into the average family's lifestyle. They aren't as demanding, messy, loud, and destructive as the larger parrots.

As you can see, I am a huge fan of budgies! It breaks my heart that there is such an overpopulation of them in captivity and that most don't reach their potential as loving companions.

The picture of Daphne was taken by my friend J as she visited my house last week. I love it when people with large birds come to my house and handle her because they are often shocked at how tiny and tame she is.

Stella update plus a few videos

I took this picture of Stella yesterday in order to compare her feather growth since her first day with us. Obviously in these past two months all of her mutilation sores and residual blood are gone. Her feather quality has greatly improved, and she's filling in more. I've found downy feathers in the bottom of her cage, but I'm not sure if they are due to plucking or normal molting. It's hard to tell from this picture, but the feathers near her vent are growing in nicely.

I don't know if she'll ever be fully feathered. She's only 5, so there's a good chance that she can be. As long as she's happy, it doesn't really matter.

She's taken a few flights, usually when something scares her, and she's managed to navigate around corners and land relatively well. Her outermost flight feather on both wings is in the process of growing in, so once they are in, we'll start concentrating on flight training.

Here she is, this morning. I placed her on the table, and she found one of my chapsticks -- a girl after my own heart!Now that strawberry season is pretty much over, I can move on to my next fruit obsession: peaches! A local company brings truckloads in from Georgia, and it's something I look forward to every summer. Delicious!Thomas was attempting to do the crossword puzzle in the paper yesterday afternoon. Having been up for 36 hours straight, he was a bit punchy and having trouble with the clues. He started drumming his pen on the table, and Rocky started jamming.

As I do every Wednesday, I went to the local farmers' market yesterday. Thomas was able to come along, and when he's there, we buy more. Our fridge is stuffed with vegetables -- bok choy, baby bok choy, salad mix, arugula, onions, carrots, dill, basil, potatoes, wild berries, and more I'm forgetting.

I've been able to buy the lizards' food here for the past few months, which means they get local, organic food that I'm sure tastes better than their normal store-bought diet. I was cleaning the swiss chard I'd bought, when my greens monster had to come over for a little destroying. I still don't get what Max finds so enticing about greens!!!

The world's most beautiful hand-dryer

Another talent Calypso possesses is that he is the world's most beautiful hand-dryer. If I pick him up after recently washing (but not completely drying) my hands, he gently licks the water off. It has become a treasured bonding ritual, and I often will intentionally pick him up with semi-wet hands.

Name change

We picked a new name for Kika: Stella. It maintains two syllables, ends in an "a" and reminds me of my favorite plainchant, "Ave Maris Stella" which I can sing to her. (If you want to hear it, here is a copy on youtube).

Here she is, enjoying peas we got from our CSA last week.
While all the parrots enjoyed the peas, they seemed to be a particular favorite of the greys. Max:Last night, Thomas was trying to get a picture of Beeps playing with one of the new toys on the playstand. But every time he'd aim the camera at Beeps, he's stop playing with his toys and start making threatening postures towards the camera, like here.

Stephanie may be right, in that it's his puffy cheeks that make him so adorable to me. I was looking at my parrots last night, and his do seem more pronounced than those of anyone else.

In the end, Thomas crouched behind our counter and used the zoom to get this picture. But once Beeps heard the "click," the game was up, so this is the best we were able to get. I'm just amazed at how flexible they are -- his right foot is so high up on the toy!

Over the weekend, we made zucchini bread with vegetables from our CSA (I guess we're not making entirely healthy foods with everything!) I cut a few pieces for us for dessert, and of course Max was right there, helping herself.

This picture didn't turn out the best, but I wanted to include it because her eyes are pinned to a pretty great degree. She loves food like this!And then a couple of pictures from this morning. I had washed my daily apple and set it on the counter while I finished the rest of my breakfast. Max will not eat apples. I've tried daily for years to offer her some, but I am rebuffed. Once she ate a small piece and I had hope that we'd turned the corner, but that was months ago now, and there has been no further apple interest.

Anyway, this morning she was tonguing (is that even a word?) my apple, just like she had the strawberries! I had never noticed this before. After I cut up the apple, I offered her some, but she was still not interested.She noticed me taking pictures of her (see above), and started looking at me quizzically. There was something about her posture that made me include this picture on the blog. It seems to capture her inquisitive personality!

Visitors & the long weekend

Hope everyone had a nice long weekend!

We had visitors on Thursday -- three bird-loving people that I knew from phone conversations and the Internet, but had never met before.

My parrots are not used to strangers, and it showed! Luckily, they tend to accept people after meeting them a few times; unfortunately, it will be a long time before they see these people again since they were from rather far away. Actually, Daphne, Kika, Rocky, Calypso, and Beeps were well-behaved. Max was pretty good, but she wouldn't step up on anyone else -- she'd fly away.

I tried to do a short clicker training demonstration, but Max was more interested in dancing than performing her tricks! We only had a short time at my house, but it was good for them to meet new people.

Here's a picture of Max, with her foot up because she wants me to pick her up.

I got home from work on Thursday, and Beeps had bathed in his water dish. What a mess he makes! He is so adorable when he's wet, though...

Here's another picture of Beeps, on alert. I could just eat this guy up! I know everyone thinks their parrots are adorable, but there is something special that draws me to this guy!I had done laundry, but placed the clean clothes at the bottom of the stairs instead of taking them immediately up to our bedroom. Rocky decided to take advantage of this. He climbed up my laundry basket, pulled out a clean pair of shorts, and brought them into the bathroom where Thomas was showering. He played with them for quite some time!I tried to get a video of him playing with my shorts (it would have been very similar to videos I've posted where he's playing with a towel), but he decided to run around with his beak on the floor instead:

Thomas had to mow the lawn over the weekend, which meant his two partners-in-crime had to keep tabs on him through the patio door that's just at their level:

In the background, you can see the one flower that I've managed to grow. I will probably pick it soon and see if the lizards will eat it!

Speaking of toys (Rocky with my shorts), we got our orders from Grey Feather Toys and from TNT Bird Toys, so the parrots have been very happy! I'll be posting more pictures of their toys in the upcoming weeks.

Here's a video of me introducing a new toy to Max. This is the large GFTC stainless steel bell. Right now, it's hanging in Kika's cage.

Here's Beeps, playing with one of his new toys. Caiques tend to be amazing toy players, and the two I own are no exception. They tend to particularly like toys that make noise when they bang them, and toys from which they can hang.

To the left is Beeps with his new Skadaddle. It has quickly become a new favorite!

Unfortunately, this picture turned out kind of blurry. But it's the best one I've been able to take of Calypso that captures the essence of how he plays. He's hanging onto his Birdy Bella.

He loves to hang off of his toys and shake them, which means he shakes in the process since he isn't holding onto the cage at all. One of his favorite things to do, which we call "the monkey," is to make his way around his cage using just his toys, with frequent stops for toy shaking and banging. I've tried to capture this on video, but when he sees me with the camera, he stops and comes over for me to pick him up!

Sometimes he'll have one foot on two different toys, and he tries to attack them both at the same time. I can spend (and have spent) a long time, just watching him play.

Our fish are still doing well. The two tiny babies are now the size of the larger baby when I first saw them last Sunday. They've been exploring different parts of the tank. Our old green cory cat also made an appearance over the weekend -- I hadn't seen him for months and assumed him dead. It never ceases to amaze me how these guys can be such great hiders!

When I called Thomas in to see the green cory cat, he remarked on the number of amazing aquarium happenings that have taken place in our house recently.

Parrot relationships

I answered, in a rambling way, a question posed to me in the comments of a previous entry by Sonja, and thought I should expand my answer a bit.

Bird-on-bird aggression is a real problem, and can have severe or even fatal consequences. As I wrote in the comments, I know several birds who have had their top beaks removed by another bird, many birds whose toes have been removed, and at least two that have been killed by other birds.

We are extremely cautious in our house when it comes to Daphne, as she is so much smaller than everyone else and could easily be harmed. When she comes with us into the kitchen, I have her perch in a place where the other parrots can't access her. She is never allowed out of her cage unsupervised, not even for 30 seconds if I have to grab something in another room. If any of the parrots had ever shown aggression towards her, we would implement even stricter policies to ensure her safety.

We are careful when it comes to our other birds as well, but not to the same degree as we are with Daphne. They are similar size so the threat of serious harm is less (although certainly not eliminated). Beeps, Max, and Calypso all can fly to avoid a confrontation, and Kika will be there soon. We know their personalities and feel comfortable with the risks that we take. Rocky has never made any sort of aggressive move towards another bird (towards me -- that's another matter!)

Calypso and Max are allowed to go on each others' cages. They've worked out a system that works well for them, and have been doing this for over four years. Usually Max flies over to Calypso's cage and either plays with his toys or eats his food. When Calypso has had enough of this, he takes a few steps towards Max, and she flies back to her cage.

Any other parrot that goes on another's cage is immediately removed, and they rarely do that anymore as they know it's not allowed.

Max and Beeps will occasionally get into a little tussle, but this appears to be play-related, and I intervene if it lasts more than a second or so. They take turns instigating, so one isn't stressing out the other.

When Kika first came to live with us, Max buzzed her, but this stopped after a few weeks, and hasn't happened for months. Max also will occasionally buzz Rocky, but usually only if he's on Thomas's shoulder, as she knows that's generally not allowed. This happens about twice a year.

There are no friendly interactions between my parrots. Even though I tell the caiques it would feel better if they'd allow their fellow caique to preen the pin feathers they can't reach, they don't listen and they're stuck with my human fingers trying to do the job.

I guess the point of this is to explain how things are in our house, and to reveal some of the thinking behind what we do. I would hate for anyone to stumble across this blog, or the pictures, and think it's ok to allow a bunch of flighted parrots to roam their house unsupervised. Serious damage can occur, and these wild animals depend on the humans in their house to keep them safe.

In updates on other things I've written about lately, we have finished all 9+ pounds of strawberries. Yum! I was able to find all three of the baby fish this morning. I feel even more certain that they are Australian Rainbowfish, and that the largest will survive. The two smaller ones probably will survive also, but I'll feel more confident of that in a week or so when they're a bit larger! And we still haven't made a decision about Kika's name. Maybe we'll just keep it because I can't find one that I love.

We're having visitors in a few hours, so I'll be back in a few days with posts about how the parrots behaved. I'm hoping Max will do her clicker routine, but sometimes she doesn't like to do it in front of people.

Kika name dilemma

Of our six parrots, four of them came with names. For the most part, we've continued calling them what they've known in the past -- Rocky, Calypso, and Kika. We changed Beeps's name, but still often refer to him as "Babycake" which is what he was known as for the first few years of his life, and how he sometimes refers to himself.

Since we got Max from a breeder, we got to choose her name (we thought she was male when we did) and Daphne, intended as a breeder, was unnamed.

I've been seriously thinking about changing Kika's name, however. Every time I say her name, I think of the racial slur that is one letter away from her name. Even though it's not pronounced the same -- we say "kee-kah" -- it disturbs me. She's only 5, so we'll probably spend the next 25-45 years with her, and that's a long time to be distressed be her name!

Thomas is not being helpful in this process. He keeps suggesting other names that are one letter away from racial slurs or dictators (i.e. "let's call her Stalit!") He thinks he's being funny, and I have to admit that he does make me laugh, which only encourages him.

I've been thinking a lot about this, especially when I'm running and have time to think, and came up with what I thought was the perfect name -- Roxy. Excited, I told Thomas, and he reminded me how close that name is to Rocky. How did I miss that?

Right now, the names on my short list are: Cassia, Fausta, Livia, Silvia, Helena, Ava, and Karla. But none of them seem quite right.

I need to make a decision soon since I think the longer we call her "Kika," the more confusing it will be when we make the switch.

Yet another strawberry story

Lately it seems like I should rename this the strawberry blog! But I took a video of what Max does to the strawberries, so I thought I would share it, partly because it's so strange.

She spent at least 10 minutes yesterday, licking the water off of the strawberries. She wouldn't eat the berries at all. There's no possible way she could have been thirsty, either.

After about 10 minutes, she threw a strawberry on the counter. I told her she shouldn't waste them because they're so good, washed it, and put it back in the bowl. This started a game for her, where she kept throwing strawberries out, so she had to go back to her stand for a while.

I'll be back tomorrow with a non-strawberry post!

As for the fish, Thomas claims to have seen all 3 babies yesterday, but I could only find one of the smaller ones, and the same thing this morning. They're pretty good at hiding, which is probably how they've survived this long! Also, we have tons of plants and other hiding places, which is how we went 14 months without seeing our pleco.