Big and scary

Rocky will have been in our house for 4 years next month. He is an entrenched member of our family. Despite this, he feels the need to constantly remind me how big and scary he is. I know, Rock!Last night after work, Thomas and I were having a pretty intense conversation. We also had the radio on, providing background noise. I thought Rocky was nesting in his flannel and therefore wasn't paying attention to his whereabouts. I got complacent. All of a sudden, I felt something at my achilles tendon. Rocky had snuck up on me and fake bit me, like he does to Thomas.
I am so happy it wasn't a real bite and was extra careful the rest of the evening! Thomas thinks Rocky will lose interest in biting my feet if I just let him do it and don't react. He says that Rocky won't actually bite me, he'll just fake bite me, like he did yesterday and like he has done in the past. I am not willing to take that risk, and strive to keep my feet out of his range.

Monday night

Thomas beat me home from work last night. When I got home, he was brewing, alone. Only Steve, in his cage, was in the kitchen with him. I asked him if the parrots were in their cages, but he said that they just hadn't wanted to join him. Within a minute, Rocky, Stella, Max, and Beeps flew or walked in.

Thomas was brewing something similar to Dogfish Head's Festina Peche, which we had while in Boston and loved. As he was making his peach puree, Max kept exclaiming "want some!" But she really didn't.I interpret this look as, "What is this? I don't like peaches! I thought this was squash!"

I sat down at the table since Thomas didn't need help at that moment, and Steve came down to eat, less than two feet away from me. He is getting more courageous! He seems to feel much more comfortable when Thomas isn't there. I think he lived with a single woman for the first years of his life.
On his favorite perch. You can see wood chipped off of his wood toy, a leather strap bitten off, and beads and arms bitten off of the purple toy.
I think I heard him say another word when we were in the living room and he was alone, but since I couldn't decipher it, it doesn't count.

The greys then all got almonds. Max actually cracked one open! Usually, she expects us to do the hard work for her.
I couldn't decide which of these Stella-almond pictures I liked better, so they are both here:
Steve also ate one, but dropped it as soon as I pointed the camera at him, so I gave up after two attempts and let him eat his almond undisturbed.

Steve at two weeks

Tonight marks Steve's two week point with us. Progress is being made, but it is slow, slow, slow! He has been playing with toys like crazy, which is great. He also seems more relaxed, which I know is not a very specific thing for me to say. He's been chewing at his nails less frequently, and has been making happy grey noises. It's been a few days since we've heard the scared growl. He's also more frequently seen in a relaxed posture -- bent down a bit -- as opposed to standing straight up, on alert.

He also has not come out of his cage in about 10 days. I'm not pleased with this, but realize that it takes time for him to feel comfortable around us, and it will be so much more exciting once he chooses to be out with us!

He spends most of his time on the highest perch in his cage, though this weekend, he started exploring a lot more. Here he is on his boing, on the other side of the cage:And hanging upside down, en route to getting to his water dish:
At his water dish:He sat there for quite some time, much longer than he needed to get a drink. I take this as a sign he's feeling more comfortable with us, as the first week or so, he'd come down to quickly take a drink only when we were in a different room.

He's spending a lot of time undoing the knots in the toy you can see to his right -- beads strung up on veggie-tanned leather. This tends to be a favorite toy of greys, and he is no exception!

When Thomas gave Max a kiss this morning, Steve made a huge kiss sound. He also said what was possibly his first word in years Sunday. I bent down in front of his cage to pick something up, and he said "Whoa!" in a very animated tone. I'm not sure if "Whoa!" really counts as a word; possibly with an asterisk, but it's still a good sign. He's observing what's going on around him and commenting, whether in words* or sounds. I'm hoping that he becomes less frightened as he sees us interact with Max and Stella, who enjoy being with us.

Rocky and Stella

Saturday morning, Rocky had taken a drenching shower with Thomas. But that wasn't enough for him! He took another bath, in his water dish. Rocky rarely does this. It was maybe the third time since we've had him (almost four years) that he bathed in his dish. He managed to keep his head dry, though. He is so funny looking when his body is olive and his head bright green:Later on, Thomas was sitting on the kitchen table. Rocky kept trying to get inside his shirt, so he could chip up wood pieces. I didn't think he could do it, but I should remember to never underestimate my severe macaw:*************************
Stella, like the rest of our parrots, is not allowed on shoulders. Though she has never shown any intention of harm towards us, the risk of a face bite is too great. However, she likes being on shoulders, especially Thomas's, so she seeks out opportunities when he is busy doing other things as he can't remove her.

For example, doing a neti pot (though she's perched more on his neck that on his shoulder):Or brewing, moving the beer from the secondary fermenter to the bucket used for bottling:

Baby robins

Another batch of baby robins has fallen from the nest. This little guy on the right was just so adorable. I watched him for about 10-15 minutes. I don't think he can fly yet. The baby robin on the left is a bit older, as he could fly, though poorly.
A close-up of the little guy:Then, the little one stood up, and the older one walked around the patio a bit.
I saw them a few more times over the weekend, hopping around the grass.

Short stories

When I got home from work yesterday, Elsa looked like someone had inflated her as her top layer of skin was molting off. Though this picture doesn't entirely capture her molting, you can kind of see what I'm talking about:Here she is, post-peel. So much darker and skinnier! She went under her heat source for a while after I peeled her:
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Shoes + towel = Happy Rocky
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Here's Steve, eating dinner, while we were in the room!

Head pets and a few random stories

Max continues her search for head pets. I think she may be a bit hormonal, as she is very needy and then occasionally starts to regurgitate. She hasn't brought anything up, luckily!

This morning, she was distracting Thomas from reading the paper:He just couldn't get away from the greys this morning:She moves her head so he gets exactly where she wants:Rocky was nesting with a towel this morning:
He hasn't been spending much time with Thomas lately. He is consumed with nesting. At least it keeps him busy!

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This morning, Thomas was showering with Max, Stella, and Rocky. We no longer separate them with bottles, as is shown in the header of the blog. It's not really needed anymore, plus Rocky and Stella just knock the bottles off, so it doesn't even work!

He called to me to come and get Max the troublemaker. Apparently the three parrots were happily perched on top of the shower, when Max jumped Rocky. The two of them fell off of the shower ledge, feet entangled, and landed on their backs in Thomas's hand. He blamed Max, but that's because he thinks Rocky can do no wrong. Max spent the rest of the shower in the kitchen with me.

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Daily Steve update: he partially destroyed the toy I left for him yesterday, but there's still a lot to go, so I left it for today. I'm hoping for more destruction when I get home today! He didn't come out of his cage yesterday, but moved around his cage when we were in the room. Small steps.

He is becoming much more vocal with grey sounds. Last night, Stella was in her cage. Thomas had Max on one hand, and was searching the kitchen for Stella, so he could put the greys to bed. He asked for my help in locating Stella. She wasn't in any of the usual places. I told him she was in her cage and he didn't believe me because he was hearing grey noises that weren't coming from Max.

The noises were coming from Steve! We still have a long, long way to go -- don't get me wrong -- but these small improvements are wonderful to see.

Excess weight

Last night, Beeps came flying into the kitchen. He's not the best flyer in general -- he lacks stamina -- but last night he was worse than usual. He couldn't keep elevation and ended up crash landing on the floor.

Could it be the excess weight he was carrying as he came in with a giant cashew?Whatever the reason for that bad flight, he started flying normally again later, so no vet visit is needed to look into this unexplained change.

Steve update, and a show off

Steve continues to make slow progress. He's still spending the vast majority of his time on the highest perch in his cage:We placed toys around him. This serves two purposes. First, it provides him a way for him to feel hidden. A prey animal, it can be very disturbing to feel like you're on display all of the time. He feels safer when he is partially hidden. Second, since he's spending most of his time on that perch, it allows him to play with toys without moving.

We're still finding small wood chips in his cage lining, and he's been doing some chipping with us in the room! He also took all of the beads off of a new toy we'd placed next to him the day before:He's got another new toy in his cage today, and I can't wait to get home -- I hope it's destroyed!

He has a boing on the other side of his cage, and I got a picture of him exploring it:Hopefully soon he will spend time in different parts of his cage.

He still takes food very gently from my hand; here he's eating some peas:
Also, we got tail wags from him on three separate occasions -- something that greys do only when they're content! So he's settling down and feeling safer with us.

Beloved Parrot asked in the comments about his history. With rescue birds, you never know for sure. The story I got is that he was originally purchased because his owner wanted a talking bird; someone to entertain her. He was a decoration, not a companion. According to the intake sheet his former owner filled out, he has quite a large vocabulary, though no one has heard him speak in almost 2 years.

Somehow, he got loose and spent 5 days outside before being found (Thomas jokes that he and Max have something to talk about!). His owner took him to the vet upon being found; everything checked out fine. Then, she put him in his cage, and he refused to come out for the next year. She never took him to the vet again or did anything to figure out why he didn't come out of his cage.

Finally, she called the rescue where I volunteer and asked that someone come and get him. He wasn't talking anymore and she was tired of him. When the director took him out, she noticed blood under his wings. He'd mutilated under both wings, to the point where there was no skin left, just open wounds, and his owner never noticed!

He's been at the rescue since late last fall. He's been thoroughly vet checked and deemed healthy. He's had laser treatments done under his wings, in hopes it would help with skin regrowth (it didn't). He's had homeopathic remedies tried, in vain.

Our best guess is the mutilation started due to the trauma of being outside and not having a proper enriching and loving environment. Thomas and I are trying to get him to have a mental break-through, learn how to be a bird, be part of a loving family, know he's safe, etc., and we're hoping that once he's safe and secure, he can stop mutilating and let his skin regrow. However, mutilation is very complex and once it's been established, can be very hard to break. We don't know when he started mutilating in his previous home, but the mutilation could have been going on for almost 2 years now.

We'll just wait and see what happens! He has such a gentle personality, similar to Stella, which gives me great hope.

Max continues to be very interested in him. She frequently goes to a place on the stand closest to his cage, and sits there, saying "Hello!" and "How are you?" He doesn't respond, though looks at her with interest. This is the stand next to the stand she's usually on. She's definitely spending more time there because of Steve.

She also likes to put on shows right in front of him, swinging around and playing with toys:
Hopefully he's taking notes and will surprise us with some moves of his own someday!

Apple grabber

Stella helped herself to the fruit in our basket. We noticed after she'd taken a bite, so we removed all of the rest of the fruit so she didn't take one bite out of each:A few hours later, she did the same thing to another apple!
We have peaches sitting out on our island right now. She is very interested in them, but we are being super vigilant so they don't all end up with a bite out of them.
They're ripening and need to be left alone!