Caiques!

Although Calypso is still acting strange after out trip, he is starting to get back to normal. Yesterday, for the first time since we've been back, he asked to go into the kitchen with me as I prepared dinner (a version of fast nut burgers again -- yum!) I'm hoping he'll be back to normal this weekend.

Isn't he just gorgeous? I will have to try to get a picture of his tail feathers. As he gets older, they have been coming in yellow and orange instead of green. He is just so vibrant!Here's a picture of Mr. Hormone (aka Beeps). I haven't been taking many since the combination of hormones + proximity to a camera means a good chance of an attack on me. In this picture, his eyes are just starting to flash red, which means I need to watch out.
However, I think the end is in sight for his hormonal period. Yesterday, for the first time in about a month, he was not overly excited when I came home from work and he stepped up nicely on my hand and asked for a few head pets from me. It was so nice holding him again!

Of course, later in the evening, he did try to attack me. As Shannon said in a comment about her hormonal bird, I'm just glad he's pretty small. Dealing with this kind of behavior from a large macaw or cockatoo would be exponentially more stressful than dealing with Beeps!

Guess whose wings got clipped last night?

Rocky's, of course. He was going to get 3 attacks on me, but the two that happened were within minutes of each other, so he was trimmed. Why tempt fate? He already seems happier. I managed to duck one of the attacks, but for the other, he landed in my hair and was trying to climb up to attack my head. Luckily Thomas was right there and extricated the macaw, so no bites.Also, Stella is not the only one who likes to hang out with the shoes. We really need a separate room with a door where we can take off our shoes; until we move, we're stuck being vigilant as someone has been chewing on one of Thomas's shoes. He is not happy about that, as you might imagine.Speaking of Stella, she continues to like to hang out by the stove. We try to discourage this as much as possible (I moved her right after taking this picture). For her safety, she has to be in her cage whenever the stove is on. I'm just glad we don't have to deal with this with anyone else!
I was clicker training the greys last night; I guess I'm going to have to start putting the other one in her cage. Max was on the top part of the stand, and Stella was jealous that her training was over, so she started climbing up this figure-8 in order to get to Max and stop the training.

Rocky got into trouble several times last night, so Thomas had to grab him up. He really enjoys being held like this -- I wouldn't recommend it with most parrots! His hands would be bloody if he tried this with any of our other parrots. Thomas like to say he's palm-sized; good thing we didn't adopt a blue-and-gold macaw instead!Max got some more Thomas pets last night. Rocky was quite jealous of this. He was making his vomit begging sounds and climbing on Thomas to try to divert all of his attention. She looks so startled in this picture!Speaking of startled, last night Rocky was lurking around and trying to get me. I know when he's in this mood because he starts walking really slowly. He knows that when he walks slowly his nails don't click when he walks, so he has the element of surprise on his side.

What he does not know is that I always make sure I know where Rocky is because I don't want to be attacked. I pretended to walk down the hall, but in reality stayed right behind the corner. When he lurked around the corner, he was shocked that I was there and not where he expected me to be. He jumped several inches in the air and let out a little scream of shock. Thomas and I couldn't stop laughing and Rocky eventually joined in. He's a really good sport!

Jumped

Calypso's favorite food is giant cashews. He'll eat the smaller ones, but the big ones are his favorites. I found a bag of large cashews the other day and have been making it a point to give him one in the morning when he first gets up and another in the afternoon when I first get home from work. Although that may sound like a lot of cashews for a little caique, he eats only a small portion and the rest is discarded.

He's still not back to normal after our trip, and I'm hoping that I can bribe him into liking me again. It's just going to take time, but he's already showing signs of normalcy.

Yesterday after work, I had the open bag of cashews in my hand. I had just given Calypso his and was about to go around and give some to the other parrots, when I was jumped by Beeps. With no warning, he launched himself at my head. Instinctively, I threw my arms up to protect my head (I'd much rather have an arm bite than a face one!) As you may imagine, when I threw my arms up with a fairly full bag of cashews, cashews exploded all over the room! The good news is that Beeps did a U-turn back to his cage and immediately went inside so I could lock him in for my safety (he knows the drill).

I turned my attention to closing the bag, when Rocky flew at me! You may have noticed from some of the pictures that we are attempting to let his wings grow out again. I would love for him to be able to fly, and as long as he doesn't attack me, he'll get that chance. Previous attempts at this have ended up with the scissors, but I'm (naively?) optimistic when it comes to him.

Rocky gets three attacks on me, and then he'll be clipped. We're not counting last night since we're not sure if he was launching himself at me, or at the cashews on the ground. When he got to the floor, he immediately started devouring the nuts and didn't try to attack me.We didn't let him eat all of the nuts. Thomas swept them up (since he's the one who let Beeps out) and returned Rocky to his cage, with one cashew.

The question of whether or not to clip Beeps is weighing heavily on our minds. I truly believe that his recent attacks have all been due to hormones. I also see signs that he's coming out of this, so I don't want to make a hasty decision. I guess we'll wait another week or so to see what happens. Since I've been on alert for attacks, and also since once he lands on me to attack he has to posture for a few seconds before starting to bite, I've managed to escape with all of my blood.

I'll keep you posted.

Jamming out to...Beethoven?

Here's Max, enjoying Beethoven's 5th symphony. Once she realizes I'm filming her, she turns her back on me :(

Severe Macaw Hat Dance

I've mentioned before Rocky's fascination with a red fleece hat that we own. Thomas can only wear it when Rocky is in his cage, or Rocky will launch a major attack. We have to keep it hidden in a closet for everyone's safety.

Thomas had been out raking leaves and had placed the hat on the counter to dry. Somehow (i.e. one of the greys flying around), it got knocked to the floor. Since it was in an out-of-the-way corner, Thomas forgot about putting it away once it dried.

Rocky made a happy discovery when he found it last night. He was playing with it for about 15 minutes when I took this video (I had been in another room and didn't realize what was going on. Thomas was cooking dinner and was thrilled to not have a little pest around his feet.

As you can see from the video, he did take a short break from his hat activity to try to intimidate me, but was unable to resist the lure of the hat for very long.



Speaking of a little pest around his feet, here is a short example of what he has to put up with from his little macaw. Rocky is like a little dog and runs around the house, following Thomas. When he catches up to him, he fake attacks, fake eats, or preens his feet. This was mostly preening. In the background, just as Rocky is going between his feet, you can hear Beeps say "Babycakes." He's also beeping in the earlier part of this video.


Speaking of making dinner, we've been eating a version of nut/veggie/bean burgers about once a week for dinner. Sometimes more than that. They are so delicious and quick! As anyone who's read this blog for any length of time might suspect, the recipe derives from my favorite cookbook, How To Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman.

He gives a sample bean burger recipe here. The nut burgers are pretty much the same, except that instead of the beans and bean liquid, you use 1 c. nuts (we've always used walnuts because that's what we keep in stock), 1 c. oats (instead of 1/2 c.), 2 tbsp. ketchup, and 1 tsp. chili powder.

Last night, I realized that I had one beet on hand, so I grated that up and added it to my nut burger mixture.

Here it is in the food processor, waiting to be turned into patties:And here are the patties cooking:We used our new cast iron pan for the first time. Beloved Parrot's comment to me the other day made me realize that I needed to actually do something about eliminating the non-stick items in my kitchen instead of just thinking about it! Thomas and I agreed that they tasted better coming from this pan.

I'm hoping to buy a food mill this weekend so that I can go back to the apple orchard and get enough apples to make my own applesauce.

Finally, last night as dinner was cooking, Thomas was sitting at the kitchen table reading a magazine. Max flew over and started preening herself. Thomas started preening her as well, and they stayed like this for quite some time.



Thomas is often so busy with Rocky (and Beeps) that it's more infrequent than we would like that he can spend one-on-one time with another parrot. Max took advantage of his solo status!

Veteran's Day

When we were there, London was gearing up to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I. This is a scene from last Saturday that we found on the lawn of Westminster Abbey.

This seemed to be a much bigger deal over there than I've witnessed here. There was a big poppy appeal and a good percentage of the population had a poppy pinned to their jacket.

There were over 40 million casualties (20 million dead and 21 million injured) during the war -- a number that I find extremely hard to comprehend.

I've read a few books on the subject and cannot imagine going through the horrors that have been described. The images of trench warfare are impossible to get out of my mind.

Amazingly, there are still some veterans of that war that are alive.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this post, except to thank those men and women who have served, and to express optimism that we can reach a point as a civilized society where such things could never happen again.

Shoes are not your babies!

As I've mentioned before, Stella has been trying to nest in the carpet we have in front of the door that leads to our garage. It's also the place where we leave our shoes so as not to track anything inside the house.

While she'll immediately step up for me from her nest area without any problems, she tends to give Thomas a bit of trouble. She'll strike at him a little bit, but eventually step up without problems. This morning, I was coming into the kitchen when I heard Thomas say, "Shoes are not your babies! Quit trying to bite me!" I doubt that will have much of an effect on her future behavior, though!

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One thing that makes me very happy is Stella's increasing confidence. In August, the last time we left them with the bird sitter, she reported that Stella would not venture off of her cage. This past trip, just three months later, she was flying all over the place. I'm just so pleased at the progress she's made!

Another example of this happened this morning. On Sunday, Thomas and I went to a local apple orchard and bought a peck of apples. We've been eating the Honeycrisps, and they are unbelievably amazing. I left my apple unattended in the kitchen while I went into the living room to give Beeps, Calypso, and Rocky their slices, and I returned to see that little nibbles were being taken out of my apples:
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For the first time this season, Beeps showed extreme aggression against Thomas last night. He made two successful launches at Thomas's head, and several more that were thwarted when Thomas ducked in time. All were done when Thomas was interacting with Rocky, so we're unsure if there's some sort of Beeps-Rocky jealousy going on. If there is, Rocky is oblivious to it.

Poor guy. I can tell he wants to be his normal, sweet self, but the hormones take over and it's like he loses control over his actions. I may try to pick up some chamomile tea to see if that will help.

Beeps videos

I took these videos the day before we left. Thomas was "singing" (not quite sure what to call it) and Beeps was doing flips around his seed cup and stopping occasionally to dance. Of course I wanted to capture this on video!

I managed to get one flip and a little dancing in here. It gives you an idea of what was going on, but Beeps does not really like to perform for the camera. Imagine much, much more flipping and dancing.

Then, just as I was shutting off the video, Thomas let a little profanity slip. It's hard to hear if you're not looking for it, but I was hoping to get Beeps to do it again so I wouldn't have to put any profanity on the blog.


First, Thomas knows he's not supposed to swear anywhere near the parrots. Rocky knows several swear words, but we try not to reinforce them and I think it's been months since any have come out of his mouth. Also, although our greys are not prolific talkers, by any stretch of the imagination, they have the capability of speech and I don't want swear words to be in their vocabulary.

Second, I can kind of understand why he was so upset as he had just noticed the stack of attack-ad campaign mail that I'd piled up on the counter en route to taking it out to the recycling bin. This does not excuse it! (Also, boo for living in a swing state! When we got home from vacation, every single message on our machine was a robocall attack message.)

After he calmed down, Thomas promised to not swear and to try to help me capture Beeps flipping and dancing again. This video makes me laugh and I think it's because I can see Thomas's arms in the background as he gets excited about his "singing." Unfortunately, this attempt, and subsequent ones, were unsuccessful.

We're home!

We're back from vacation, and the parrots survived our absence. Before we left, Thomas gave Max a big hug:And then a few kisses; it was hard to capture on film!She's rather obsessed with kissing, and often makes the kiss sound, or talks about kisses (mostly demanding them). Usually she is satisfied when we make the sound back to her. Occasionally, she'll fly over for some personal attention.

Our wonderful bird sitter took care of everyone perfectly, again. We are so lucky to have her! The caiques in particular love her!

We got back late Saturday night. The house was freezing. Well, technically not freezing since it was 53 degrees, but that's pretty cold! We had the last of our furnace work done Friday and the electrician turned off the furnace! He told me he'd put it back on, and we hadn't noticed before we left on vacation since the house was at the right temperature.

Our bird sitter did everything she could to get the furnace to work, but didn't know about the switch downstairs. And who would even think to look there, except the homeowners?

In any case, the fish, lizards, and parrots all survived this mini cold spell, and have been basking in upper-60s temps since Saturday night.

As for our return, the parrots must be getting used to us leaving and returning. They were sleeping when we got back Saturday night, but we let everyone out.

Rocky was so happy to see Thomas! He kept singing, coughing, chirping, and making his happy noises. He did launch one attack at my feet, but I jumped out of the way before getting bit.

Max was also very happy to see us. She made a couple of happy squeal noises, but she acted as though she knew we were coming back.

Beeps is still a giant hormonal mess when I'm around. Apparently he behaved for the bird sitter, but I'll have to probe deeper to see if this is true. He has taken to launching himself against the side of his cage when I walk by and he's inside. He's also made several aerial attacks on me in the two days we've been back. As such, he's been spending more time inside his cage than we would like, although we make sure he still gets out for several hours a day.

Stella and Daphne were normal. Like we hadn't left for a week.

Calypso, as usual, has been his after-trip self. Major freakouts. I haven't been able to hold him, but expect to be able to by the end of the week. He absolutely loves the bird sitter; sometimes I think he'd be happier with her. Too bad for him that he's staying with us :)

We took almost 400 pictures in London, so I have to go through them in order to find ones to post. We saw lots of fun birds in the parks, and I have a squirrel video that I hoped turned out well.

Thanks to everyone for their Max hatchday wishes and vacation bon voyages!!!

Random musings

The Phillies won the World Series last night! The parrots were so excited when I told them this morning. This is the first time that a team I've followed for my entire life has won. Yea! I still remember my disappointment in 1993 when Joe Carter hit that winning home run against Mitch Williams. I think I have that game on tape somewhere, but have not had the heart to watch it yet, preferring to remember when they were victorious against the Braves in the NLCS instead.

Also, because the game started in the bottom of the sixth inning, having been delayed two days due to rain, I was able to watch the end of the game instead of falling asleep and reading about it the next day. What excitement!

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My friend with the talkative parrot returned home yesterday from a 10-day vacation. She snuck into her house as quietly as possible so that she could see the reactions of her parrots when they realized she was home. When he saw her, he clearly and loudly said, "Ahhhh, Oh my GOD!!!"

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We leave for vacation in two days, and I'm nowhere near ready. I have lots of laundry and packing to do. I also have to cram the parrots' cages full of new toys so that they will have things to keep them busy while we're gone. We've done this for our past few vacations, and they seem to enjoy that. They like their birdsitter and are well taken care of during our absence (or we wouldn't go) but they are still acting a little strange. I think they know something's up.

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I'm not sure if I'll have time to post this tomorrow, but it's Max's hatchday. She hatched on 10/31/01, which makes her 7 tomorrow. I can't believe she's getting so old! She's the first parrot we got, from a breeder, so she's the only one for whom we have an actual hatchdate. It somehow seems fitting that she hatched on Halloween!