Pizza decisions

Last night, Thomas placed his dinner on the couch for a minute and then ran back into the kitchen to retrieve something. Seeing an opportunity, Rocky ran down his cage and up the couch. He loves pizza!

But then I came in the room -- what a decision he had to make. Should he eat the pizza or threaten me? You can almost see the wheels turning in his head...
And anyone who's read this blog more than once or twice probably guessed what Rocky did...That's right -- he would rather threaten me than eat pizza. Look how big and scary he is!

Playing cards

We spent New Year's Eve at my parents' house. This made our parrots a little sad since they had to ring in the new year alone, but they quickly got over their sadness when we returned!

Almost 2 years ago my parents adopted a cockatiel from the rescue where Thomas and I volunteer. It was intended to be a hospice situation. He was at least 25 and in very bad shape. His wings were damaged in a way that could only have been cause by abuse. He was very weak. We needed to find him a quiet home where he could live out his final weeks in peace -- that's about how long the vet guessed he would live.

It's hard to find a home for a bird like that -- who would adopt a bird knowing they have such a short time with him? Luckily my parents stepped up and brought him home, expecting to have him less than a year.

Under their care, his health has made an amazing recovery. He no longer looks like a sickly old man. He's brought so much joy into their lives, and while they know they won't have a long time with him, any time they do have is a bonus.

We play a lot of cards in my family, and their cockatiel was invited to join in the fun. We accused my dad of having him mark the cards:Wandering around; disrupting play:
He walked over and climbed up Thomas's arm:
He does get tired out quickly, so after a few hands of this, he went on my dad's shoulder where he took a nap.

2009 review & 2010 preview

I can't quite believe how quickly 2009 flew by! We had another great year. It was perhaps the pinnacle of my running, though I'm hoping it doesn't just go downhill from here. I finished first in my age group in 2 races, second in a couple more, and set PRs in 5 distances (5K, 10K, 10 mile, half marathon, and marathon). I qualified for the Boston Marathon -- something I didn't think I'd ever be able to do.

I met many of my 2009 goals, but also failed to meet others. Maybe 2010 will be the year that I finally finish Citizens? (This has been on my to-read list for over a decade -- I am currently over half done, so I have hope I can finish it in 2010).

The parrots had a pretty good year. Max finally learned to retrieve, which had been a goal of mine for several years. Stella continued her integration in our family. Rocky began flying. Perhaps most surprisingly, we didn't add any more animals to our flock. Now, if only those caiques got along...

Here's my list of 2010 goals:

Reading:

• Finish at least 52 books
• Finish Citizens
• Finish the Harry Potter series (I have 2 books to go)
• Read at least 5 books in French

Fitness:

• Place in at least 2 races
• PR at one distance
• Finish the Boston Marathon with a smile on my face
• Yoga three times per week
• Run an average of 26.2 miles per week

Knitting:

• Make something that requires two strands of yarn
• Make something nice enough I can give it as a gift

As always, I love the promise of a new year. In 2009, I picked up yoga and was introduced to what is possibly the best TV series of all time, The Wire. We traveled to Central America and Asia (though only briefly) for the first time. We saw wild parrots in their native environment. I read the first five Harry Potter books and saw what all the fuss was about.

What will 2010 bring? Thomas finishes his residency and begins his fellowship, which means he'll be home more. We have a trip planned to Boston so I can run the marathon. Other than that, it's all a big unknown that I can't wait to discover!

I wish everyone reading this a wonderful 2010 as well!

Medication

The caiques are on antibiotics for 10 days, aftermath of their fight on Monday. They've had 2 doses, with 8 to go.

Luckily, they both love the taste of their medicine, but it can still be a challenge to get it in them!

I've been making sure that I get home a few minutes before Thomas so that I can give Calypso his medication. He just perches on one hand and drinks it out of the syringe. If Thomas is home, he's not as amenable and winds up needing to be toweled.

Thomas tried doing the same thing with Beeps last night. Unfortunately, his caique-ness reared its ugly head. When either of our caiques get too excited, over something good or bad, they do what we call the caique freakout and appear to lose any sense of reason. Beeps really loves the taste of his medication, so after a few drops, he did the freakout and bit Thomas on his hand.

Beeps doesn't like to be toweled, so Thomas came up with a different way to restrain him while giving him his medication:We can't wait until they're done with their medication!

Caique ER

The caiques got into a fight Monday night. Beeps was locked in his cage. Calypso managed to get out of his cage, fly over to Beeps's cage, and start a fight. Both caiques wound up with bleeding wounds on their feet. Their hormones always go crazy around this time of year, and there had been many more caique fights lately -- we'd always been able to break them up in time before.

We packed them up and took them to a 24-hour emergency clinic. We are very lucky in that this clinic was started by an avian vet. Even better, she was working when we arrived!

She looked at them and decided they needed to spend the night in incubators. Any kind of blood loss in parrots is a serious concern, and it's better to be safe than sorry. It was a sad ride home. I hadn't thought they'd have to spend the night, so I hadn't brought the toys they snuggle with when they sleep, or any of their favorite foods. When we got home, there was no joyous beeping to greet us, and Beeps's favorite song was playing on the ipod, and it made us miss them even more.

The next morning was also very sad. Without Calypso, my shower was lonely.

Finally, around noon, I was told that I could pick them up. The receptionist told me that they were dancing and whistling and everyone kept going back there to visit them because they were so funny.

Once I arrived, I wanted to see them immediately, but had to finish filling out paperwork (we actually got a refund from the estimated fees -- having 2 birds spend the night in the ICU was much less expensive than I thought. Thomas guessed it would be more than $1200, but it was less than $500.)

Then, a tech came out and asked me which one was bigger because they couldn't tell them apart and wanted to make sure they had the right medication doses (just preventative antibiotics). They are the same size! The last time I weighed them, a few weeks ago, they were within 5 grams of each other and I don't remember which one was bigger. I gave her other clues to tell them apart and offered to go back there, but was told I couldn't see them yet :( She was able to tell them apart -- what's funny is that Beeps's dose is 0.25 ml and Calypso's is 0.26 ml. I'm not sure if you've ever tried to accurately dose and medicate birds, but 0.25 and 0.26 are basically the same thing!

As soon as they saw me, they started making their distinct whistles (Calypso does "charge" and Beeps does one that he made up) and making huge kiss sounds. It was so great to see them again! I'd brought their favorite nuts and gave them some to enjoy in the car. The car ride home was filled with whistles and kisses and happy caique noises. Neither one took their eye off of me the entire ride home -- they each had an eye glued to a hole in their carriers.

We'd been all set to put them in hospital cages with heating pads, but the vet said it wasn't necessary. The only change in their routine is that they have to take antibiotics for 10 days. They'd healed very well and were perching just fine before they were sent home. It was wonderful to have our family complete again. After we put everyone to bed last night, Stella was singing and whistling for over 30 minutes -- longer than usual -- and all her happiest stuff. Even though she doesn't pay much attention to the caiques, we think she was happy to have her flock whole again. But we're probably projecting and anthropomorphizing.

This incident made us realize that we'd perhaps gotten a bit too complacent with these wild animals, and we need to ramp up our supervision. Also double checking that all entrances and exits to the cage are secure. If they'd both been uncaged, this probably wouldn't have been an issue since they would have fought for a bit and then flown off. Since Beeps couldn't fly away, the fight escalated. We're just lucky that the outcome wasn't any worse.

I didn't take any pictures, as my main concern was getting them the care they needed. I was going to take some yesterday to show the wounds on their feet, but they are barely perceptible in person and didn't show up on the camera.

Grey interactions

Though it's certainly not right for every house, living with two greys is so much more interesting than living with just one. As I've mentioned before, their interactions are fascinating. I believe that a big reason why Stella made such huge progress from the scared, mutilating parrot we first met to the happy, confident parrot we have today is Max's presence and their innate flocking tendencies.

Both greys love nuts, and when they are able to reach the containers in which we keep our human nuts, they will attempt to help themselves.

This video is a bit longer than I normally post; about 45 seconds. However, they were being so fascinating. Max wants to help Stella get the nuts out; Stella uses her body language to order Max away; Max complies.


I don't think it's possible for Stella to get at the nuts without ruining the container, so after several minutes of watching her trying to get at the nuts, I allowed her to get one. Look at how excited she is -- she runs over!


In other grey news, Stella is still obsessed with digging in the carpeting near our shoes. This is scrap carpet, so it doesn't bother us too much. Our main concern is that we don't want to encourage any egg production or undesirable breeding behavior in her. I think it's adorable when she perches on a shoe, though:Thomas has been reminding her that she is not a shoe, but it doesn't appear to be sinking in.

And here they are on the stand they gravitate towards. There is an identical stand next to this one which is mostly ignored. I'm not quite sure how to explain what they do, but they both do little things to irritate each other. Ideally, they should be on separate levels of the stand. However, one will often climb to the cup holders, as Stella has done here, in order to gain closer access to the other grey. In this case, once Stella had gone to the cup holders, Max went up to the top level. Although she looks innocent here, the reason for that is so she can try to hit Stella in the head with the toy.
I'm not sure if they're jockeying for position within the flock, playing some sort of game, or just trying to get a reaction from the humans in the house, but we closely watch them to make sure no one gets hurt.

Making toys

Thomas was helping me finish up some preening toys for the parrots at the rescue over the weekend. I do the majority of the assembly, but he's able to get the eye hooks inserted much easier than me, so that's his job.

He got some unexpected (and unwanted) help:



Not surprisingly, Stella had to come over to see what all the fuss was about:

On congos and timnehs

Bibi left this comment:

I wanted to ask you about the differences between your Congo and Timneh. I've heard that Congos tend to be more timid. Is Stella more shy around new people/things than Max? Are there other differences in behavior that you've noticed?

I thought I'd respond in a post rather than a long comment. First, what a fun website! Bibi is very talented and I can't wait to explore her website a bit more!

Now, back to the question at hand: timneh vs. congo personalities.

As always, I have to put in a bit of a disclaimer. We can definitely talk generalities, but since each parrot is an individual, those characteristics will not necessarily show up in every individual. I only live with two greys -- one congo (Stella) and one timneh (Max) but have volunteered at a parrot rescue for over 6 years and have interacted with hundreds of greys (more congos than timnehs) during that time frame. Those hundreds of greys have ranged from severely abused and neglected birds that were surrendered to severely pampered birds who were coming in for grooming, and everything in between.

In my house, there is not a big personality difference between Stella and Max. They are both equally bonded to Thomas and me. If I were to write out descriptions of their behavior, there's no way that anyone would be able to tell which one was the congo and which one was the timneh. There are two main differences that I can think of: Max dances while Stella refuses to (though I have known dancing congos), and Stella is actually better with strangers than Max. If someone comes to our home, Max will usually fly away and not step up; Stella, on the other hand, steps up, though you can tell she didn't really want to leave me.

When we first got Stella, her previous owner had told the rescue that she was terrified of new toys and perches. That wasn't true in our house, and she'll investigate a new toy as eagerly as Max will. They both have an insatiable curiosity and are constantly exploring new things, probably hoping a nut will somehow appear!

It's really at the rescue where I volunteer that I've seen the most personality differences. In general, the timnehs at the rescue will come out and step up for just about anyone who is calm and asks them nicely. Some congos will do so, but more often than not, they run to the back of their cage to escape the intruder or try to bite. It generally takes more time to gain the trust of a congo than a timneh. The timnehs seem a bit more resilient in the face of what must be a terrifying experience (being left by your family at an unfamiliar place -- in the wild, this would mean almost certain death for these prey animals).

In my opinion, a lot of this has to do with their start in life. Though timnehs are gaining in popularity, congos are in higher demand. They are more expensive and easier to sell -- more profitable. They are much more likely to be raised in production facilities (akin to puppy mills) and shipped off to pet stores, missing out on much of the crucial development stage as they sit alone in cages without much interaction, human or avian. Timnehs were more often raised by small scale breeders who treated the babies as part of the family until they left for their new home. They were abundance weaned, had plenty of toys, and had lots of interaction with other babies, perhaps some older birds, and humans. I think many of the stereotypes and generalizations of congo vs. timneh behavior stem from this. In particular because most pet stores are not very concerned with whether the person buying the parrot knows what they're doing -- they just want their money; on the other hand, small-scale breeders typically are about as hard to get a bird from as many rescues. They want to make sure their baby will be in good hands. There are no impulse purchases. Of course, there are many exceptions to what I've just said!

I'm not saying that a sub-optimal start in life dooms the parrot. We traced his band and Rocky was hatched at one of the worst bird mills around and he is quite delightful, for a severe macaw. Stella's original owner purchased her from a pet store, which means she likely was production raised. Breeders who spend a lot of time raising their parrots typically want to meet and vet potential owners. When we purchased Max, her breeder grilled us for several hours before deciding to allow us to purchase her. Yet, both Stella and Max have similar personalities now. In a good home, I believe that much of the damage of a sub-optimal start can be undone.

In conclusion, based on my limited experience, congos and timnehs make equally wonderful companions -- in the right home. If I were to add another grey to my home, I wouldn't go into my search with the thought of adopting a congo or timneh. I would just find a grey at the rescue that seemed to like me. For someone who wants to get one from a breeder, I'd recommend researching breeders and finding one who carefully raises their babies -- congos or timnehs.

More nuts

We've been in nut mode lately, so after finishing the nuts we received as a gift from a friend, I purchased some more.

Since one of our goals is to give our parrots as many choices as possible, we offer the nut container to them so they can pick out what they want (Max, Rocky, and Calypso choose cashews 100% of the time; Beeps does about 90% of the time -- Stella is the true wild card. Though she just seems to grab whatever's closest, so it could just be laziness on her part.)



Luckily the nut that Max threw out was a Brazil nut. I can't blame her! I eat them occasionally in order to get selenium, but they're certainly not a favorite. I'm just glad she didn't waste a pecan.

Since I was videotaping, I had to stop momentarily so I could get her off of the container; I also placed a half cashew, the only one I quickly found (i.e. without touching all of the nuts) right on top to make things a bit easier on her (I know, this defeats the purpose...)


I think Thomas and I may need to have a container of cashews just for ourselves since our parrots are picking them out of our mix.

When he got home, I told Thomas there weren't any cashews left, and he was so proud of himself for finding one. "I'm a better forager than Rocky!" is a direct quote.

Blackberry

I'm not sure why this photo turned out so orange; it looked fine on my camera! In any case, since we have so many parrots, and the squeaky wheels (Max and Rocky and, to a lesser extent, Stella and Beeps) get the grease, I try to make it a point to spend daily quality one-on-one time with Calypso and Daphne.

Neither makes it to a blog entry very often, as they are very well-behaved and cause me almost no troubles. They make for great companions, but not great stories!

This morning, I'd put the rest of the birds in their cages while I had my second breakfast, yogurt with blackberries and honey, with Calypso. I'll usually let him roam the table as I eat and read the paper, but since I'd given him a blackberry and wanted to confine the stains to his stand, he perched there until he'd finished his fruit.Both of my caiques adore any kind of fruit -- fresh or dried. I don't think I'd given him blackberries before, but he dug right in. Luckily for him, my grocery store had them on sale, so he'll have them daily for at least another week.

I know I get mushy when I write about him, but he really is such a wonderful guy. He's just so puffy and warm and wonderful and I can't get enough! We are so lucky to have him in our lives.