Obsession

With the exception of Daphne, my parrots are obsessed with kissing. The greys constantly will yell, "Gimme a kiss!" and the other parrots respond with kiss sounds. When they're not on us and Thomas or I asks them for a kiss, they respond with the noise. When they're on us, they put their beak next to our (closed) lips and sometimes make the sound.

They occasionally get into what I call kissing contests, where they seem to compete to see who can give the loudest and/or longest kiss.

Stella was in a particularly kissy mood over the weekend. She kept running after Thomas, asking him for a kiss. He finally picked her up, and all she wanted to do was nuzzle against him:
More kisses:
She couldn't get enough!
He'd been having a tough week, and Stella knew just what to do to perk him up again!

Agitated Beeps

Late last week, Thomas was reading the paper at the table. Beeps was out and about, and decided that he wanted to be near Thomas. So he flew over and tried to land on the paper that was hanging off of the edge of the table, hovering over Thomas's lap. Luckily Thomas was able to lower the paper so Beeps could land safely on his lap. Beeps got another lecture about making sure that a spot is stable before trying to land!
Thomas placed him on the table. He decided to hang out under the newspaper.
He's just so photogenic, I couldn't resist putting up a couple of these pictures! He's starting to get a bit agitated in this picture. He's standing up straight, his feathers are puffy, and his eyes are starting to turn a bit red.
In this video, you can see him getting a bit more agitated. Had I stayed where I was much longer, there's a good chance I would have received a flying attack! The beeping he does here is a sure sign that he's gearing up for an attack. When added to the mechanical head movements and the deliberate plodding, that's almost a guarantee of an attack. One thing I love about him is how transparent he is! When he gets worked up, I know it!



After I hid the camera from his sight, he quickly calmed down.

Noisy

Thomas is finishing up a string of night shifts, which means he has to try to sleep during the day. Normally, this isn't a problem even though our house is filled with noisy parrots. They make noise constantly when we're on the level of our house where they are. However, when we go upstairs, as long as they can't hear us, they usually settle down after a few minutes and are pretty quiet, with the exception of toy playing (bells) and the occasional whistle or screech.

Not so yesterday.

I was at work and Thomas was trying to sleep. He called me in the afternoon to complain about the parrots.

Thomas: "I can't sleep because the parrots are being irritating."

Me: "I don't believe it. They're quiet during the day."

Thomas: "Not the greys, not today. Listen."

I do not know what got into the greys yesterday, but they were en pleine forme. Whistling, beeping, talking, screeching -- noisy.

Thomas: "They've been doing this for over an hour. I'm just going to get up."

He investigated and couldn't find any reason for the increase in noise. I guess they were just happy.

Personally, I love the noises greys make. I find the noise soothing and it makes me happy. Unlike, say, macaw screams or caique beeps. Thomas generally agrees, but not when he's trying to sleep!

Stella and the pantry

Stella is obsessed with the cabinet and pantry doors in our kitchen. When one is left open, she either flies to it and lands on top of the door, or she'll walk over and stare into the space:
She can be so strange!
A few nights ago, for the first time, she went inside the pantry:
I'm not sure if she's trying to seek out a dark, enclosed place for nesting, or if she's just curious about our dishes and stored food.

In any case, over the past few weeks, whenever we're not sure where she is, we just have to look around on the floor near the cabinets and we find her!

An accident waiting to happen

She needs to be a bit more careful of where she puts her head!

Watching DVDs

Our TV is right next to Rocky's cage. In order to put a DVD into the player, you have to squat down right next to his cage. When Thomas and I are both home, this is his responsibility. If I'm home alone, I have to either lock Rocky in his cage while I change the DVD (and then be on the lookout for his feet coming through the cage bars and trying to grab me) or hold him on a stick and attempt to change the DVD one-handed.

Last night, Thomas was a little miffed that I hadn't put the DVD we were going to watch into the player (Why? I'm not sure, as it's been three years that we've had to operate this way).

Rocky was playing on top of his cage.

Thomas: Why didn't you put the DVD in?

Me: Rocky's out. You know that.

Thomas: He's playing on his cage. He wouldn't bother you.

Me: Are we talking about the same macaw?

Thomas goes over there and squats in front of the TV. Rocky immediately races down his cage to be near him.

Me: See why you had to do this?

Thomas: What? He gave me a kiss! You don't want a kiss from him?

Me: I'd love one, but if I were over there, it would have been a bite.

Thomas kept insisting that Rocky would not have had any ill intentions towards me. However, I know better, and I think Thomas does, too.

Stella likes feet, too

Normally it's Rocky who hangs out by Thomas's feet; yesterday, it was Stella. I crouched down under the table to get this picture, and when I looked up, I saw this, curious about what I was doing:
Sometimes she is so adorable I can hardly stand it.

Why I would not make a good professional trainer

As I've written about before, Max learned to do the retrieve. In conjunction with my interpretation of "Nothing In Life Is Free" (where Max has to perform a trick or forage for her food -- work for it), I'll often make her do a flying retrieve before she gets some of my yogurt in the morning.

I'll place her somewhere, give her the bead, and she has to fly to the cup and deposit the bead. The next step is to get her to fly to a bead, pick it up, and deposit it in the cup, but neither one of us is motivated enough to do that yet.

In any case, yet again this morning, she deposited the bead into my food instead of the cup that was right next to the food!I think she does this intentionally because my reaction to her is reinforcing. I think she is so clever and funny! We all had a good laugh, but she did need to place it in the cup before she got her spoonful of yogurt.

Macaw vs. macaw

Thomas and I have occasionally thought about adding another severe macaw to our house. Are we nuts? Quite possibly, but there is sound reasoning behind this thought, but also behind our decision not to add to our current flock.

Rocky is so devoted to Thomas that it can be overwhelming at times. What if we could find a severe macaw that would bond with Rocky? The two of them could live happily together while still having interactions with us. The idea is very tempting.

However, the reality is that it's unlikely we'd be able to find an appropriate match. Parrots are individuals, and what are the chances that a macaw we brought home would bond with Rocky? Slim. I had hopes of my caiques bonding, and they ignore each other. With our luck, any severe macaw we brought home would bond with Thomas also, exacerbating the problem!

A few months ago, we were shopping and saw a stuffed scarlet macaw on the clearance table. For $1, we thought we'd give it a try to see how Rocky might react to a friend (partly in jest as obviously a reaction to a stuffed animal is different from a real one!)

Based on his reaction, it's a good thing we never tried to introduce another macaw to our house!



The noises in the background are generally what my house is like during waking hours. Calypso is squealing (he's taking a bath), Beeps and the greys are beeping. The only noise Rocky made was a quick vomit sound near the end.

Also, he is attacking this toy mostly as displacement behavior since I approached his cage. Every once in a while you see that he stops to make sure that I'm still there and watching him. If I weren't there, he would have stopped.

He really enjoys doing this. He'll often come near me and then attack the nearest soft item while looking at me. When he knows I'm upstairs alone, he climbs the stairs, pulls a piece of dirty laundry through the holes in our laundry basket, and then attacks it while watching me. He'll do this even if Thomas is home and Rocky could spend time with his favorite person instead.

He fascinates me. If he dislikes me so much, why go through so much trouble to seek me out? Just stay away! He's been calling my name more often and screaming when I leave the room. Thomas says he wants his whole flock together, which does appear to be the case even though he doesn't like me. The most dysfunctional relationship I have is with a macaw!

Calypso update

Since March, we've been locking Calypso in his cage only at night. During the day, he has the ability to choose where he goes, even when we're not there. In this post, about halfway down, I give some of his background.

I didn't write about this earlier as, in general, I believe that parrots should be safely enclosed when not supervised. This protects parrots from possibly hurting themselves (I've heard of a goffin's cockatoo that chewed through the wall into the wires and electrocuted himself, though not fatally) or another parrot if more than one are out unsupervised at once. This also helps to protect the home from curious beaks (I've linked to this site before. Can you imagine coming home to that?)

Of course, parrots are individuals, and what works for one parrot will not necessarily work for another. As parrot caregivers, I believe it's Thomas's and my responsibility to get to know our parrots and make decisions as to what's best for the individual.

In our continuing effort to raise Calypso's self-esteem and provide him with more opportunities to make decisions for himself, we decided to not lock him in his cage during the day. I would not try this with any of my other parrots. Calypso has been doing really well under this arrangement.

We started slowly. He would get to stay out for an hour when I went downstairs to work out. Then he'd stay out for a couple of hours when we ran errands. He was perfect. He'd play on his cage, or go to Max's cage and play. Max and Calypso never fight and she is fine with this arrangement. (I'm probably being sappy, but I attribute this to the fact that he saved her life).

He seems happier, to me. I think he enjoys this additional freedom. He's been playing more, and soliciting even more attention from me than he used to. He begs to shower with me pretty much every morning, and has initiated a few new nighttime rituals. (This prolongs bedtime, but he is so adorable I treasure every moment with him).

Last week, I came home to find that the foraging bucket attached to the side of his cage, a toy he'd ignored for years, had been emptied:
It's just toys, not food, so don't worry about that! I was so happy to see evidence of his play when we're gone. When I saw this, I said, in an excited voice, "Calypso! It looks like your bucket exploded!" and he started dancing up and down and making his happy squeaky sound. He's since emptied his bucket every day!

I don't know that we'll always be able to do this for him. For example, if he starts wandering around the house, we'd need to start locking him up again for his safety. However, I'm glad Thomas had the idea to do this and convinced me it was OK to experiment in such a way (I tend to worry a bit too much!)