Tuesday evening

I got home a few minutes before Thomas last night, so all of the parrots were out when he came home from work. The greys always fly right over to him to welcome him; yesterday, Beeps joined them. He landed on Thomas's back pants pocket:He then started climbing his way up Thomas's back, but I removed him before he got very far. Beeps is unpredictable at times and we do everything we can to prevent a facial bite!
We were cooking, or rather Thomas was cooking. I did try to help, but Beeps and Max were extremely needy last night. Beeps, in particular, would not leave me alone. I'd place him on a stand, and he'd immediately fly over to me. Since he spends so much of his day (when I'm at work) in his cage, I didn't want to cage him -- I figured he was telling me he wasn't getting enough attention. Max, who is usually more independent, started being just as needy as Beeps. I suspect this was less that she wanted to spend time with me and more that she didn't want Beeps (her nemesis) to have me to himself.

With a parrot on each arm, I couldn't accomplish much. Luckily, Thomas picked up the slack so we ate dinner at a decent time.

One of the few times Max flew off of me was when she spied garlic cloves on the counter. Here she is, perched on my cookbook, eating garlic that was supposed to be for the recipe (don't worry, we had extra!):
Finally, I found that Beeps would perch on the green stand for about 5 minutes before leaving to find me. We keep all of our plastic bags in a bag attached to our pantry (and bring them to the store to recycle them when it's full). I had opened the pantry door to grab something, and Beeps grabbed a plastic bag to chew on! I didn't want him to accidentally eat any, so I grabbed the bag away and gave him a piece of wood instead.
After dinner, we were in the living room. Rocky has been hanging around, on, and under the food cart. He is so strange!

More grey interactions

Max was on the chair first, but was pushed off. She found some of Rocky's wood chips on the ground, so all was well.



But for how long? The reason I taped so long the first time is that I knew this second video was coming. Turns out it was just a bit later than I thought!

Garlic

Max may know something we don't about an impending vampire invasion, as she has been playing with garlic all weekend. Peeling it, separating the cloves, etc.
Sometimes just standing there with the bulb in her beak:This video, once again, captures some of the dynamic of the relationship between the two of them. Note in the background that there are plenty of garlic bulbs that Stella could have picked up, if she wanted to play with a bulb.


On Saturday, when Max was playing with the garlic, she dropped it in a full glass of water that was on the counter. The challenges of living with a parrot that likes to do the retrieve trick! That bulb then became exclusively a parrot toy.

She was also playing with the garlic this morning. As I put her in her cage for the day, I went to give her a kiss on her beak; part of our normal routine. The garlic smell was so strong! I'm not sure if this will protect all of us from vampire attacks, or just Max!

Radishes: a grey story

Over the weekend, Thomas cleaned the radishes I bought him at the farmers' market. Max was the first to come over. As usual, I don't think she was eating them, but possibly licking the water off of them, or maybe just licking them? (It is very strange, her fascination with radishes since I have never seen any evidence of her eating them!)She moved around for a better angle:
But her happiness did not last long. Stella noticed that Max was enjoying herself, so she had to come over to see what the fuss was about.
From the above picture, it would appear that there are plenty of radishes to go around. Especially if they're just licking them. Not when these greys are involved!

Stella giving Max the stink eye:
Max thinking about fighting back:
It worked! Stella has the radishes to herself:
But not for long -- greys are persistent!
Stella chased Max off again:
When Max didn't come back over, Stella quickly lost interest.

Red-winged blackbirds and running

Thomas and I ran a 5K race this morning. We got there early, so were doing a warm-up, part of which was near a lagoon. I saw so many female red-winged blackbirds! I guess I hadn't been looking for them before, or maybe because they aren't that distinctive or colorful, they faded into the background. But when I looked at them more closely, I realized how beautiful they really are -- the different brown colors, the patterns on their chests, etc.

I kept pointing them out to Thomas, and he was getting frustrated with me, I think. "Thanks for pointing out a really common bird! Why are you getting so excited? They're not rare!" But that didn't stop me -- I kept pointing them out!

There were also geese aplenty. Some of them were hanging out on the paddleboats docked in the lagoon. What characters!

The race was very poorly organized. They didn't have a timing system (at the last minute, their timer realized he was double-booked), the course was not marked well (so we ran a little extra), and they started 30 minutes late. In addition, they were cursed with very bad weather for May. It was almost freezing, with gusty winds.

Despite all that, I had a fantastic run! I can't verify this, because there was no timing system in place, but two spectators and Thomas told me that I was the first woman to cross the finish line. How exciting! I'm planning on working on my speed over the next few months to see how fast I can go with proper training.

Happy Migratory Bird Day!

The sneak attack

Andreas needed some help with his molting. We're especially concerned about the dead skin around his feet, as if the skin is not removed, it can constrict the blood flow. He lost two toes to this during his vet visit the day after we purchased him.
Rocky followed Thomas into the kitchen where he stopped to take care of Andreas. He wasn't the only one keeping an eye on things. Max was also around (though the picture I took of her was too fuzzy to post), as was Stella:After Andreas was back in his tank (and sulking -- he immediately went in his hide), Rocky pulled one of his sneak attacks on Thomas. I love how he gets so much joy out of this! He pulled a sneak attack on me once, years ago, when I was drying my hair and didn't realize he was out of his cage. I am now very careful, as I wouldn't put it past him to turn one of these fake attacks into a real one. As a runner, the last place I would ever want a parrot bite is on my feet!

Parrot perching

Stella's obsession with Thomas continues. He was standing on a chair yesterday and leaned over to grab something. Stella decided that his backside would make a good perch!A closer view; how is she holding on?He got her off of him and went to the sink to prepare some vegetables for dinner. Not thwarted, she went to his head instead:
And in another ongoing saga, Beeps is still demanding to be on me as much as possible. I do not allow the parrots (and certainly not this unpredictable caique!) on my shoulder, which means I have to be a bit more creative in finding ways to get work done while tending to his social needs.

I was able to wash the mushrooms by having him on my arm instead of my hand.
This morning, Beeps bit me, totally unprovoked. He may have temporarily lost his human perching privileges unless I can give him 100% attention and therefore be on alert for the first signs of overload so I can get him off of me! The bite was not too deep (despite his best efforts) and I expect to heal quickly. As I left for work this morning, he was regurgitating for me and saying "Pretty baby!" from his cage. Not so much!

Farmers' market happiness

Yesterday was the first farmers' market of the season. To me, that's the unofficial beginning of summer! There were very few vegetables as yet, since the planting season has barely started, but I was able to get some greens, asparagus, mushrooms, radishes, and a few other things.

I suspect Max was foraging for water and not eating any of the radishes as I couldn't find any parrot beak marks in the radishes:We eat much healthier in the summer when the farmers' market produce is available to us. Our first salad of the season. Yum! (I know I can buy grocery store produce, but am a bit of a produce snob, so we eat much more when it's locally available and tons more delicious!)
Thomas was making yogurt last night, and it had to sit a while until it got down to the right temperature. Max, of course, had to investigate:I just love how she puts her little foot up there, too.

Parrot personalities

I've written before how much Rocky likes to stand in front of the patio door and look outside:Thomas hates it when he does this, as he's worried Rocky may take a bite out of the wood. But he was working late last night, and Rocky was persistent as I was busy doing other things, so he got to stare outside for a bit. Luckily, our patio door remained intact!

Then, a curious visitor joined him:If you look at Rocky, you can see that he's gearing up to attack her in order to keep this view to himself.

Thomas finally got home, and collapsed on the floor in exhaustion. Yes, he can be a bit melodramatic at times -- perhaps it's this personality trait which makes him so appealing to the parrots as they love drama and excitement!

In any case, as soon as he hit the ground, Stella flew down to be near him. She was preening him in this picture. He kept telling her to stay out of his ear, but she didn't listen, so he finally picked himself up to put a stop to that.
Later on in the evening, Max flew over to take a drink out of my water glass. Though she had shown no interest in my water for the past hour or so we were all in the kitchen with it, Stella had to immediately fly over to see what Max was up to:And then she chased Max off. Once again, the flock dynamics are so intriguing.

An aquarium mystery

Thomas really pruned down the plants in our aquarium during one of the cleanings last year. He left some hiding places for the smaller tetras, but the rainbowfish prefer open space to swim. Therefore, we can almost always see our fish as they don't have that many places to hide any more. However, our smallest clown loach has found a place, somewhere.

Last week, Thomas and I each spent over 30 minutes looking for her. We'd finally decided she must have died and the other fish ate her body. But, the next day, she'd reappeared! Since then, she's been doing the disappearing/reappearing act several times a day.

I suspect she may be preparing a nest (but where?); however, it's likely that none of the babies will survive since there aren't many hiding places for them to stay until they're too large to be eaten. Off to the far right in this picture, you can see the two larger clown loaches. The small one? Nowhere to be seen!*************************
Last night, Beeps was very needy, so I attempted to make dinner one-handed as he demanded to be on me. Obviously, this was not ideal, so I placed him on the sink while I did tasks that required both hands. And he started licking the drops of water on the sink!!! I offered him a drink of water out of a cup, but he preferred his water foraging method.************************
This morning, Max again bit into Thomas's banana after he'd placed it on the counter for later consumption.
He was not happy about that!