Cage envy

I still haven't been taking many pictures, but here are a couple.

Rocky loves to hang out on Beeps's cage and Stella's cage. This puzzles us as his cage is much larger than either of theirs. This doesn't cause too many problems as Beeps will fly away if Rocky climbs up, and Rocky only will climb on Stella's cage if she's in the kitchen.

Of course he had to show me how big and scary he was when I took a picture of him on Stella's cage. Almost all of his flight feathers have grown in, and he has not tried any flighted attacks on me! We're working on strengthening his flight muscles and hope that someday he may be flighted as well. It will depend on whether he can control himself from launching at me.
Then, he started to climb down from Stella's cage.
If I remember, he followed me into the kitchen and played on the table until Thomas came home.

Stella vs. the neti pot

I wish I had video editing capability/skills, as this would ideally be in one movie instead of three (pretty short) ones. Stella had been doing this for quite some time when I finally decided to take a video. Unfortunately, I captured the three components best in three different videos.

First: she attacks the neti pot as it's drying on the counter:



Then: she flies down after it (in this video, she is then soliciting head pets from the neti pot -- this was the only time she did that. Obviously, she did not get any head pets).


Finally: she attacks the neti pot on the floor. This morning she threw the pot, chased after it, threw it again, chased after it, etc., for at least 5 minutes. Thomas and I couldn't stop laughing.


As an added bonus, you can hear Rocky screaming from the living room!

Thinking out of the box

Rocky's screaming is not as bad as it was, but he's still not back to pre-hormone levels. We've tried many things, but keep trying more in the hopes that we'll stumble upon something that really works.

Earlier this week, he would not stop screaming. I don't know what his inspiration was, but Thomas placed him in the box where we collect all of our paper recycling to take outside:
Rocky loved it! He was shredding paper quietly! Well, not quietly, as he was singing, laughing, and talking his garbled macaw speech, but I love hearing that, so it was great.

The next morning, I tried this again. He wasn't as in to it, though it did keep him quiet. There were a few more papers in the box, enough for him to crawl his way out.
Stella didn't see me place him in the box, so she came over to investigate the strange noises.

We're definitely adding this to our arsenal to try to keep him from screaming, though we're still hoping this just ends soon and next year's hormonal season is more similar to last year's, where he quietly spent his days nesting under his cage. For a month or so, it was almost like we didn't have a macaw he was so occupied with his nest.

As an aside, this week is our three-year anniversary of having Rocky at our house. Since we don't know his hatch date, only his hatch year, this is when we celebrate. That means, officially, he is now 22 years old. What an interesting three years it has been. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

The evolving grey relationship

The greys and their evolving relationship fascinate me. There are times I wish that I had more greys, because I would love to see their interactions. This isn't going to happen anytime soon, though!

The first memory I have of these two interacting is the first day we brought Stella home. Max was displeased, and buzzed Stella who fell off of her perch and reopened her mutilation wound (we should have been supervising more closely). No harm done, luckily!

What a difference a few months makes! Now both flighted and of basically equal size, their interactions are not so one-sided.

Take this scene I came across the other day:
Max was playing happily on the counter when Stella started stalking her. In this second picture, you can see Max is uncomfortable, as she's placed her foot on the wall in an attempt to move further away from Stella.
Right after this picture was taken, they both took off on a loop around the kitchen and landed, separately, on their stand.

This morning, the greys were in the kitchen with me. I left the room for a minute, and when I came back, I couldn't see Max. I quickly found her in one of her favorite places: perched on the seat of a chair. Stella saw this and quickly took perched on the other chair seat.
Sorry for the blurriness; Stella has been sticking her face in the camera at every opportunity, making for some uncomfortable close-ups. I'm hoping this is just a stage.

Cucumbers 2

More cucumbers were eaten by the parrots last night. When Rocky really likes something, he won't take his beak off of it. We think he's afraid we'll try to take it from him, so he wants to lay physical claim to it! Also, in this video, I love how something startled him, yet he kept his wits about him enough to keep the cucumber!



Yesterday, we were brewing and bottling in the kitchen. Normally Rocky and Calypso stay in the living room on their cages, Max is in the kitchen with us, and the rest of the parrots are in their cages (Beeps and Stella because they fly around too much, risking getting feathers in the brew and Daphne because I need to keep a close eye on her for protection).

However, Rocky kept screaming. Finally, Thomas brought him in the kitchen with us, where he was content. Apparently he was feeling lazy and didn't want to have to walk into the kitchen. He wanted to hitch a ride! Max kept buzzing him (she wanted us to herself), so she had to go in her cage.

Luckily, with the exception of Rocky, the parrots are very happy in their cages. Sure, we get the occasional "Wanna come out?" but no one screams, so we had a very pleasant afternoon/early evening. Now, if only Rocky would do the same!

Cucumbers

I have discovered a new form of Rocky crack. I have never seen him completely eat so much food and not leave any crumbs. I know they've had cucumber before, but I don't remember this reaction out of him. The farmer from whom I bought these will enjoy hearing about their popularity on Wednesday at the next farmers' market!

With the flash, he looks almost neon green:
The other parrots enjoyed theirs too, but not to the extent that Rocky did. I gave a piece to Max and tried to get a picture of her eating it. However, when she saw me standing there with the camera, she dropped the cucumber and ran over to me. Rocky ran over to the discarded vegetable, picked it up, and ran over to the other side of the table to eat it:
He is just attacking this cucumber! Eating it so quickly, and then making sure he grabs up any that had fallen to the table. We have enough to last us a few days, so we can experiment and see if this was a one-time thing, or if we've found a new favorite food!

Stella stories

Last night, while making dinner, I accidentally left a lower cabinet door open. Stella swooped down to investigate.Hmm... what's in there? Just dishes! Nothing interesting for parrots!
As an aside, I'd always heard that it's hard for parrots to learn to fly down, so it's a skill that people who live with flighted birds should practice with them in case the bird escapes as more than likely, they'll have to fly down to safety. While I've found that to be true with my other flighted birds (Ethel, Daphne, Max, and Beeps), Stella apparently didn't get that message. She is constantly flying down! Aside over.

She tried to open the drawer, but hasn't yet got that skill down:
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We often don't answer our phone at home since it's usually telemarketers or other people we don't want to speak to. Yesterday, Thomas and Rocky were showering, the greys were in the kitchen, and I was in the living room. The phone rang. After three rings, it stopped, I heard a crash, and the machine never picked up. I went into the kitchen to investigate. Stella had managed to knock the phone off of the cradle and push the button to answer it! By the time I got there, the person on the other side had hung up, so all I heard was a dial tone. I wish I would have caught this on videotape!

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Thomas is working night float again, which means shifts of 8 pm - 8 am during the week and 6 pm - 8 am on weekends. It's horrible! However, he does eat breakfast with the parrots when he gets home in the morning, so they like that.

This morning, Stella really wanted some of his cereal. First, she flew to the back of his chair. Then she flew to his head. Finally, she flew to the table and helped herself:Of course, then Max had to come over so there was a little fight over his grapenuts.

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Since Thomas is on this weird schedule, he has to sleep during the day. The parrots are quiet in general, but make noise for the first 30-60 minutes after he goes to bed in the morning. They know he's home and don't understand why they're in their cages. Luckily, it's nothing upsetting (like Rocky screaming), but he told me there's a lot of bell-ringing, whistling, and beeping. Frequently, the greys will get going, and call out, "Hello! Wanna come out? Up! Come here! Gimme kisses! How are you doing? Wanna come out?" It can be hard to resist them when they're talking like that, so he turns the fan on high to block them out and tries to get some sleep.

We'll all be happy when this month is over and he can go back to a more or less normal work schedule!

Grey fighting

The greys continue their attempt to both occupy the same space at the same time. I doubt they will be successful!

Max considers the top part of the stand hers -- she's the only one who had perched there for years. As Stella gains confidence, she's decided that she wants to perch there, so tries to dislodge Max. Once she's successful, Max flies over and tries to regain her place. This can become frustrating, and I usually step in and distract them, or this goes on for a really long time.

The angle is a bit hard to see, but Max has her right foot raised in an attempt to tell Stella to stay away:
That didn't work, so she had to resort to violence:
When they notice I'm taking pictures, they act innocent:

Backyard wildlife

Tuesday night, as I headed into the kitchen, I noticed a rather large animal through our patio window. I didn't have my glasses on and assumed it was a raccoon. Imagine my surprise when I realized it was a woodchuck! I have never seen one in the wild before, though they surely exist.

This one didn't seem to mind the rabbit in his territory. I'm kind of hoping this becomes a regular occurrence!

More Stella

Can't believe it's been a week since my last post. Don't worry -- things are fine chez crazy parrots. I guess I just haven't been in a picture-taking mood, and combined with an increased workload at work, the blog's taken a backseat.

Many thing happen that I think, "I should remember that for the blog," but then forget.

Last night, we were eating salads again, and Stella went up to the bowls, probably hoping for a nut, like here. However, I hadn't gotten around to putting the nuts on yet. Upset, she angrily threw three pieces of lettuce on the floor and would have thrown more if I hadn't managed to remove her from the counter. I couldn't get a picture of this, or half of the salad would have been on the floor.

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Last week, Thomas placed a couple of bottles of beer on the floor. Stella flew over, and tried to entice one of them to give her head pets, as seen here. When she wants head pets, she'll come over to Thomas or me, give a distinctive "click" sound, and bow her head.Obviously, the bottles did not oblige.

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As if this hasn't been obvious lately, Stella has been such an incredible joy to have in our house. She fits in amazingly well, and has really blossomed. How lucky we were to have, unintentionally, found such a jewel.