Rocky carrier

When Rocky displays body language indicating he will bite us if we get too close (this is all the time for me and occasionally for Thomas), we listen to him so we don't get bit!

I always keep a stick with me so I can move him around; Thomas tends to be a bit more creative as he's not as compulsive as I am about having a stick handy.

Earlier this week, Rocky had started to follow Thomas upstairs.  However, he stopped halfway up the stairs and then started posturing.  All of the sticks were on the first level.  Thomas could have asked me to get Rocky, but instead he improvised:

Rocky enjoyed his ride on the laundry express.

The greys think about eating olives

Thomas has been eating a lot of olives lately, which intrigues the greys.  They were playing with the bowl yesterday and pretending to eat them, though I don't think they even actually licked them.

However, earlier this week, Thomas was eating olives and Rocky came over to him.  He offered the container to Rocky, who took a drink, apparently thinking it was water.

Rocky was not happy about his accidental olive-water intake!  He shook his head, pinned his eyes, and finally ran away to the safety of the living room.  Unfortunately, I didn't get this on camera, and attempts to replicate this have been unsuccessful.  He learned his lesson!

Brian pretends to eat yogurt

Earlier this week, I was eating yogurt with peaches (all the peaches have now been eaten!)  Brian came over and started pretending to eat my breakfast through the clear bowl.

I did offer him some, but he declined.  He just wanted to look at me though the bowl and pretend to eat.

This one almost looks like it could be an abstract painting:

He's now started to pretend to eat the outside of my bowl, even when it isn't see-through.  Of course, then I can't get decent pictures!

Product review - Baked Birdie Munchies: Cran-Blueberry

Last week, a representative from a bird product company called Caitec contacted me and asked me if I'd be interested in receiving some free samples of a newish food line to try on my parrots.  Of course I was interested!  I received a box with a sample of their pelleted diet, Oven Fresh Bites, and samples (in three flavors) of their treat product, Baked Birdie Munchies.

My parrots have frequently acted as testers for toy designs, but this was their first experience in the food-testing realm.

Of course, Max was right there when I opened the box.  Her sixth sense for parrot-items was activated and she flew to the chair, trying to eat through the plastic.  The fact that they look like little cookies couldn't have hurt anything!

Since I am bigger than her, I got the bag to safety and opened it up.  Since Max was already excited, she got the first bite; she wasn't disappointed:

Stella, who notices everything that involves Max, in her ever-vigilant crusade to make sure she's not slighted, immediately flew over to the stand for her own share:

I couldn't decide which of these pictures to post, so they're both going up here.  They took turns eating and looking at me:

They loved them!  Whenever they see the bag, they get so excited.  Even Thomas was amazed, "Why do they like this so much?" he kept asking.

After eating another one, Stella went down to the base of her stand to scarf up the crumbs:

Of course we did not forget the other parrots; they just didn't get as excited as the greys.  But they all loved the treat!

Basil:

Rocky:

Calypso (he's so adorable I had to post two pictures):

Beeps ate some, though he's been particularly camera-aggressive lately, so you'll have to take my word for it!

I probably should have waited to post until we'd tried all of the varieties, but I had so many pictures from the first, I decided to space it out.

I did do the ultimate test, which is to pit the treat against Max's favorite food of all time, the cashew.  I really thought the baked birdie munchie might win out, but ultimately, she went with the familiar cashew:

This is quite possibly because she'd already had several munchie pieces already that day but no cashews.  I will continue to experiment!

I did have one comment and one wish.  The comment is that, due to the consistency (which the parrots loved), they are quite messy.  You can get an idea from Stella's stand above.  Little piles of crumbs stood below where the parrots had been when they ate.  Since we are always sweeping up, this is no big deal, but just something I noticed.

And my wish.  I wish these came in different sizes.  They would be a perfect training tool, but they are very large.  When I gave one to the parrots to eat, I'd always break it in thirds or fourths.  I'd love to use these as a treat for clicker training, if they were smaller.  I may try using the crumbs to see how that works.  Stay tuned!

Over the next week or so, I will try the others with the parrots and record their reaction.  So far, so good.  We'll definitely be buying more of this!

More peaches

We continue to eat peaches -- almost done with them for this year.  BP (to answer your question from last week) -- we had considered freezing some, but we kind of like the challenge of eating them all and then not having any for a year.  We may wind up having to freeze some, but we're hoping to just eat them all.

We are helped in this endeavor by the parrots; here, it's Stella, though I doubt between the seven of them they've even eaten an entire peach, so the heavy lifting (eating?) is definitely done by the humans in this case!

Pinhead

Brian is going through a molt.  When new feathers grow in, they have a sheath around them that is removed during preening.  In the wild, mates/other flock members take care of the feathers the bird can't reach, such as head ones.  But in captivity, solitary birds don't have that option.

Helping parrots preen their pin feathers can be a great bonding experience.  I frequently do this with parrots at the rescue; however my greys and caiques are experts at getting their own head feathers -- they don't need any help.  Rocky does need help, but obviously that task falls to Thomas as I would only upset him and get bit should I try!

Brian is another story.  He obviously needs help, but tries to bite us when we offer aid.  You can see how he has a ton of pin feathers on his head:

If he doesn't end up getting them soon, we may have no choice but to quickly preen them.

Of course, the other option would be to get him a budgie friend and they could take care of each other, but I might be looking at divorce if I brought someone else home at this point, so Brian is stuck with human help.

Cookie monster, part 2

Stella loves cookies.  We were baking this weekend, and had the cookies cooling on a rack near Stella's stand.  Ultimately this proved too tempting as she flew over to help herself.  It appeared as though she was going to take a bite:

But then her true plan became apparent:

Of course I took the cookie away from her as soon as I took this picture, giving her only a small , grey-appropriate-sized bite.

Backyard wildlife

With the long weekend, we were at home more than usual, which made the parrots happy, and also afforded us more time to watch our backyard wildlife.  The did not disappoint!  Our woodchuck, who has been making about one appearance a year for the past few years, was out and about:

I did a bit of research and apparently they sit up like this when they are on the lookout for danger:

He was out again this morning; I hope he sticks around longer this year!

With the recent spate of hot weather, our bird bath has been quite popular.  Unfortunately, they usually fly off by the time I get my camera in position, but this female house finch let me photograph her:

In robin nesting news, the second brood has hatched.  I've been able to see at least two baby robin heads popping up begging for food.  As they grow larger, I may find a third, like last time.  Here is the mother, feeding her chicks:

I still haven't been able to figure out what birds nested in our backyard; I'm guessing grackles due to the fact that there has been a grackle family in my yard the past few days, as well as grackles scolding us when we were in our upstairs bathroom, which is quite near the nest (though not near enough to get a look inside it.)

Speaking of robins, after our Sunday morning run, Thomas went into the backyard to clean and refill the birdbath, when he surprised a fledgling robin!

When the baby saw us, she hopped to safety under a large pine tree.  En route:

Later that day, I saw another baby on our patio; not sure if it's the same one:

This one eventually made it to the birdbath.  We think her beak was open in hopes of getting fed by her parents, but this is just a guess on our part.

This morning, another fledgling robin was bathing in the birdbath, but left when I got the camera.  In addition, there was a fair amount of squirrel activity.

Curiosity

Brian remains fascinated by the greys.  As this interest could turn deadly should one of the greys bite off his beak, we closely supervise (Thomas has full control of Max's head here) to make sure the opportunity never presents itself.

He is such a funny guy!

Peaches

The peaches are ripe, so we've been overindulging.  The greys don't care for them, but everyone else is a big fan.

Basil:

Calypso (if you can find him, camouflaged as he is by his toys):

Beeps:

We get a case of peaches direct from the orchard (is that what it's called when it's peaches and not apples?) once a year, which means mad peach-eating for a week or so, and then we live a peach-less existence until the following year as we are spoiled by these delicious peaches and can't stomach the ones from the grocery store.  Yes, we are major peach snobs.

As of this morning, we had 36 peaches left.  We put many of them in the fridge to slow their ripening, but we will still be eating a lot this weekend, which will make the non-grey inhabitants of the household happy!