Congo vs. Timneh physical characteristics

A few weeks ago, I said I would try to get photos of my greys' tails to help illustrate the physical differences between congos and timnehs.

Here's Max (timneh):

Here's Stella (congo):

In addition to the color of their beaks, one of the most striking differences is their tails. These tail feather molted naturally (I'm saving them to send to this project).I've noticed some personality differences between my girls, but those are not necessarily due to the fact that they are a congo and timneh -- my caiques also have many personality differences! But there are also many similarities between my greys. Probably the best personality similarity is that they are both very loving!

Tiny porch visitor

When I came home over the weekend, I noticed we had a little visitor on our front stoop. He stayed there for me to take a few pictures.
Unfortunately, this picture came out a bit blurry (zoom!!!) -- doesn't this little guy look kind of evil? All while looking utterly adorable...
I turned my back on him in an effort to reposition myself for better pictures, but he then disappeared.

It was a slow weekend for pictures. By the time I'd grab the camera, they'd stopped doing what I had intended to photograph! I'll try to get my act together this week!

Pandora find: Parrots

The other day, I was listening to pandora (of course!), on a radio station I created based on Mason Jennings. Since I listen while I'm working, the music is mostly background noise, although I do occasionally stop working to listen to a song.

I thought I heard the word "parrots" in a song, so I stopped to see what the song was, and it's called "Parrots" by Alexis Harte. The lyrics (found here) made me think of the issue that Beloved Parrot linked to the other day.

The song just came on again, which is why I'm posting it now.

I survived the treadmill

I woke up, hoping that the weather forecasts would be wrong, but was met with pounding rain. There is no way I was running 16 miles in that! So, after getting the parrots and lizards ready for the day (fresh food and water) and lingering a bit too long over my own breakfast and the paper, delaying the inevitable, I headed downstairs for some treadmill running. Not fun at all!

I ran to The Sound of Music for the first 12.5 miles, and then Thomas came home, got on the elliptical, and changed the channel to Saturday morning cartoons. Since he hadn't slept for approximately 30 hours at that point, I let him have his way.

That is, by far, the longest I have ever run on the treadmill, and I hope that I never have to do that again.

I feel like I shouldn't complain about the weather, given what's happening down south. One of my friends, who runs a small parrot and reptile rescue, was in the evacuation zone. The fact that there was too much rain for me to run seems like such a petty concern in comparison. So far, it sounds like she (and all of the animals) are doing well, but she hasn't been back home yet to survey the damage. My thoughts are definitely with her at this point.

A friend sent me this link the other day and I found it very interesting. Even though I don't own a dog, much less a pit bull, I just hate how they are maligned in the media and by many people. The site I linked to has pictures of many different dogs -- see if you can find the pit bull. It took me about 9 tries!

On the subject of pits, one of my favorite animal rescue organizations, Best Friends, has done amazing things with some of the dogs rescued from Michael Vick. My friend and I are in the beginning stages of planning a trip out there sometime in the next 6 months. We can't wait! You can stay in cabins on their property and volunteer while you're out there. I'm really looking forward to spending time with the parrots and with the dogs. This may only exacerbate my desire for a dog!

Friday ramblings

Another week has passed -- wow! I didn't take a single picture last night or this morning. I guess I should have saved some of yesterday's posts for today. Instead, I will post some random, mostly parrot-related, thoughts that are running through my head.

I was running a bit late and since I was going to be alone at the office today, I decided not to dry my hair. I thought about not showering, but decided that since I did have to go out in public, a shower was definitely necessary!

The greys both love it when I have wet hair. I don't think either one has even preened my hair when it's dry, but when it's wet, they can't get enough.

Last night in our clicker training session, Calypso perfected taking a bow. It will be interesting to see how he does in tonight's session!

The greys have many similar personality traits, but they are also very different. Max is much more independent and Stella is much needier. They are both quite jealous of the other birds, especially each other.

I am supposed to run 16 miles tomorrow. Right now, the weather forecast indicates thunderstorms all day. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I don't think I could handle 16 miles on my treadmill, even with "What About Bob?" playing. I also don't want to be struck by lightening.

I am so happy that I found pandora. My workday happiness has measurably increased by having this music playing all day. Also, I have been exposed to some new artists, leading to quite a few CD purchases.

Stella and Calypso have their annual vet visits next week. I am not looking forward to this. Thomas can't make it, unfortunately, which just adds to my stress since he's the one that really understands medical issues and can ask important questions. Luckily I don't suspect anything is wrong with them, so this shouldn't be a major issue.

I don't want to wish my life away, but I can't wait until Thomas no longer has to spend the night at the hospital (21 1/2 months). I married him because I want to spend time with him! I sometimes wonder if medical school was worth it...

I'm going to the library after work and I can't wait!

All's well that ends well

Last night, Max was throwing a fit about something. I don't remember what her fit was about -- most likely she was upset that parrots other than her were receiving attention. She flew over to the table and started destroying the newspaper. That'll show me!
But then she got some melon and all was well with the world again...
(Sorry I happened to catch her eye in mid-blink -- it looks kind of gross!) She does have tantrums occasionally, but luckily they are short-lived and then she's back to her normal personality! Also -- that is a giant piece of melon and much bigger than we would have given her. She grabbed it out of the bowl when Thomas's back was turned. We got it away from her after she had an appropriate amount. How could she even lift a piece that big? It's almost the size of her head!

Rocky is in nesting mode. He's found a new place to nest -- the middle level of the cart where we store the parrots' food. We keep a blanket there in case we want to cover up while on the couch (have not had to use this for months, obviously!) He even brought some wood pieces up to chip.

Once again, I feel the need to put a bit of a disclaimer about Rocky's nesting. While I wouldn't say we encourage him to nest, we definitely don't discourage him, either. That's a decision we've made, knowing him. We discourage our female parrots from nesting (we don't want to deal with egg-binding issues), and would discourage any of our males if adverse behaviors happened as a result of the nesting. Rocky enjoys this diversion, it keeps him busy, and it has no impact on his behavior, so we allow it. He's just being a bird!I had to move this plant to another location in our house because I didn't want it to suffer death-by-caique, but I thought this picture was kind of cute. It almost looks as though we're growing a caique -- how many days until the harvest?Stella, she who loves our sink and the stove, has started also perching on our dish drying rack. I can't imagine why -- the wire can't be a comfortable perch. By her left foot, you'll see where she has chipped away to the underlying metal. We're going to have to buy a new rack soon -- yet another peril of living with parrots.I've experienced fantastic customer service from two companies in the past couple of days, so I wanted to mention them here.

First, I purchased some electrolyte capsules from Hammer for use in my upcoming marathon. I received them very quickly (I placed my order on Monday and had them by Wednesday) and they threw in a bunch of free samples -- bars, gels, recovery drink, books, etc. I like their gels and my marathon partner likes their electrolyte capsules (which is why I bought some), so hopefully I like the rest of their products just as much. Their strategy worked because I was very impressed!

My other happy purchase was some shorts from Race Ready. I have a few of their long-sleeved shirts (since that's what they give away at the marathon) and had heard good reviews of their shorts. Just like with Hammer, I purchased online Monday and received by Wednesday. I ran in them this morning and loved them! There are so many pockets, which are necessary for distance runs. Also, the owners wrote a nice note on my invoice. I have not found running clothes I like better than Race Ready, so I will slowly be transitioning all of my running clothes to this brand.

Greetings

Rocky was an attention hog last night. He could not get enough of us! Repeating "hello!" is one of his ways of begging.

In this video, he climbed from his cage to Stella's and then kept saying "hello!" to me while wandering around her cage. I answer him back -- but you should be able to tell what is me and what is the parrot.

He may also have been begging a bit because his routine of late had been to go inside Stella's cage and eat her seed while she was in the kitchen. I closed her door last night so this wouldn't happen -- he has his own seed!

Ghosts?

Our kitchen is set up such that our counter juts out, bisecting the room into the "cooking" side and the "eating" side. In our house, that means the "cooking" side and the "parrot" side. Of course, since the parrots have pretty much taken over everything on the ground floor of our house, that translates into the "cooking" side and the "parrot stand" side, with parrots moving freely between both sides.

Thomas and I were on the "cooking" side, tag-teaming both the preparation of dinner and the keeping of Stella off of the floor. To be more specific, Thomas was doing most of the cooking and I was doing most of the Stella pick-up. Let me also make clear that we were preparing a salad with no stove action. Had the stove been on, Stella would have been in her cage for her safety.

As I picked Stella up (again!) I noticed that the basement door started to open. What? There are no other people in this house. The parrots can't reach the doorknob. Do we have a ghost?

Upon further investigation, Rocky had somehow managed to open the basement door! We're hoping that someone just hadn't latched it completely. If he's now able to open up properly closed doors, I may have to give up and let him completely take over our house :( He will have won the battle of wills.

He then stood at the top of the stairs, calling our names, even though he knew very well that we were in the kitchen.

Two types of people in this world

One of my favorite comic movies is "What About Bob?" I watch it several times a year, usually when I have to do a long treadmill workout and want something that will help me pass the time -- although I do have to worry about laughing too hard and falling off. But that's another post.

I am not the type of person the quotes movie lines, but the exception is probably this film. One of my favorite parts of the movie is near the beginning when Bob (Bill Murray) is in his first session with his new psychiatrist, Dr. Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss), and explaining why he was divorced. Bob's explanation: "There are two types of people in this world: Those who like Neil Diamond, and those who don't. My ex-wife loves him." After listening to Bob's explanation, Dr. Leo Marvin responds by saying, "I see. So, what you're saying is that even though you are an almost-paralyzed, multiphobic personality who is in a constant state of panic, your wife did not leave you, you left her because she... liked Neil Diamond?" (I had to get the exact quotes here).

It's probably not exactly clear why I'm bringing this up. First, let me reassure you that there is nothing going on with Thomas's and my relationship, so don't worry about that! But recently I said to Thomas, "There are two types of people in this house: grey people and macaw people. I am a grey person." (His response? A sarcastic, "oh, really?")

Being able to interact with hundreds of parrots and scores of people over the past years I've been volunteering at the bird rescue has been quite interesting. While every bird is an individual, I've been able to notice personality trends within the species, and also to observe the way in which certain volunteers and customers interact with the birds.

In my experience, the types of parrots that seem to be most polarizing are cockatoos, macaws, and greys. I've rarely (read: never) heard someone say "Gosh, I really hate budgies!" but I've had so many people tell me that they hate cockatoos, macaws, and greys. Why is that? My thought is that it might relate to the fact that these three types of parrots can be difficult to keep in captivity. They are very demanding, and things can quickly turn bad when their owners are unable to understand their body language. They are also among the three types of parrots in which I've seen the most plucking, which signals to me that they might have a harder time adapting to life in captivity than, say, caiques, and therefore disappointment sets in with the owners when the bird doesn't live up to their expectations.

But getting back to why I made that comment to my husband. With the recent adoption of Stella, I've really been thinking about these kinds of things lately. While Stella has a decent relationship with Thomas, she does prefer me. We're working on this because we don't want her to become a one-person bird! But she has never bitten or struck at me, whereas she has, on occasion, struck at Thomas and even has caused him a bit of pain, although not broken his skin. I think this may be in part to my personality and the way that I am a grey person. Max also slightly prefers me, although she absolutely loves Thomas and an observer would probably say she has no preference. The ways in which she shows her preference for me are subtle.

I just seem to get greys, and actually share a lot of personality traits with greys -- I'm cautious when meeting new people, really open up once I get to know you, carefully think things through, etc. I see so many of my personality traits mirrored in my greys (of course, there's a perception bias since my greys also have many personality traits that I don't share!)

Thomas, on the other hand, is a total macaw person. I may have mentioned this before, but we joke that he is half-macaw. He has interacted with over 100 macaws, and every single one of them has loved him. You can read through this blog to see stories of him and Rocky -- that's how they all are with him! It's really quite amazing to see him interact with a scared or abused macaw. Within minutes they're putty in his hands. Once again, I see a lot of the macaws' traits in my husband. He's very hands-on, funny, he tests people before he decides they're ok, etc.

One of my favorite macaw/Thomas memories took place probably 3 years ago at the rescue. We had had an influx of female blue-and-gold macaws and probably had four or five at the same time. He took them out and placed them on separate stands in the back where he was working. Every single one of them managed to climb down from her stand to try to capture his attention. Several of them called to him by name and one would scream from the moment she heard his car until he gave her a proper greeting.

I hope the above paragraphs did not give the impression that I hate macaws or that Thomas hates greys -- nothing could be further from the truth! I have had connections with several special macaws, but I just seem to "get" greys more. Thomas loves greys (especially the ones that live in our house!) but is truly a macaw person.

If such a scientific study were feasible and we brought 100 greys and 100 macaws into our house, in those birds that had a favorite between us, I'd guess that over 90% of the greys would choose me and the same percentage of macaws would choose Thomas.

Volunteering at the rescue has also shown us that neither one of us is a cockatoo person! When we first started researching parrots, we intended on bringing home an umbrella cockatoo. In fact, we found a great deal on a cage before we'd decided on what parrot to purchase, so we had a "cockatoo-sized" cage before we had a bird. And we thought we'd put a cockatoo in that cage. Luckily for us we started researching and ended up buying Max, our timneh grey -- she really was the perfect first bird for us (and the right size for the "cockatoo-sized" cage which is too small for a cockatoo)!

A year or so after we brought Max home, there was a mutilating Moluccan cockatoo at the wildlife rescue where we volunteer. We almost brought her home because we felt so bad for her condition and thought we could improve her life. Once again, we really dodged a bullet by not taking her home! (By the way, if anyone happened to stumble on this and is reading all the way thorough, please visit MyToos if you're even thinking of adding a cockatoo to your house! If that doesn't scare you away, you might be the right home for one!)

I'm not really sure where I'm headed with this, except to muse, like in the title of my blog, on parrots. I find their interactions with us, and with each other, fascinating.

I often wonder what our lives would be like had we purchased the umbrella cockatoo we saw in the pet store. I'd like to think we would still have her and would be providing her a good home, but would that be the case? Maybe; perhaps I would have become a cockatoo person instead. But I doubt it. I really think there's a good chance that we'd be miserable, with a strain on our marriage, and we very well may have surrendered the cockatoo to a rescue. Ugh -- I'm veering off into depressing thoughts again!

In any case, I could not have asked for a more perfect match in our house than Max. Is a timneh grey right for everyone? Definitely not! I've seen about a dozen come through the rescue in bad shape because their previous owners were unable to meet their needs. And we certainly have not been perfect owners -- Max had a plucking issue, we allowed her to escape, etc.

Pretty much blindly, with only the web as our information source, we stumbled upon timneh greys and I truly don't think we could have made a better decision.

Parrot toys

I wrote a few weeks back about making parrot toys. In addition to making toys for my own parrots, I make toys for the birds at the shelter where I volunteer. If anyone reading this wants to help out at a parrot shelter but either lives too far away to be able to go there frequently or just doesn't have the time, this is another option -- making toys in your spare time (while watching TV, for example) and bringing them up when you're in the neighborhood. Just ask your local parrot rescue -- I'm sure they'd love the help!

At the rescue where I volunteer, we take in several hundred birds ever year, and usually have at least 15-20 cockatoos and 5-10 macaws at any one time, in addition to many smaller birds. As you can imagine, they go through a lot of wood!

The other shelter volunteers save toy parts left over when the bird has destroyed the toy, such as wire and chain. I'll take a box or two of parts home and remake them into new toys for the birds. In this way, we save money as well as landfill space by recycling parts into new toys.

This is what I brought home last Saturday:
And this is what I dropped off at the rescue this morning:
By making toys, you also know that your donation is going directly to help the birds, and you're making their lives more enjoyable!

On the same toy note, I was at the hardware store over the weekend and noticed a plastic 5-drawer storage container. I have used 3-drawer containers as foraging toys for the parrots, but this one was taller and about perfect Rocky size!
I filled the drawers up with different things. Around Easter time, the stores near us are filled with paper Easter grass. I always buy a cart-full and use it throughout the year. I could probably make this cheaply at home using a paper shredder. In addition to the paper sheds, I put in various toy parts (including wood pieces to chip), and a few Harrison's power treats (Rocky's favorite).
I placed it in his cage, like this.
When I returned home from work, several of the drawers were open and he had gone through them. I think the whole toy cost about $7. Keeping your parrots' minds active does not need to be expensive!