Saturday, July 31, 2010

Green noodles are evil!

Or at least, it's what it seems here.

Petey....Petey the lover of anything noodle, or at least with thought so, has refused to eat a green spiral noodle. In fact, when presented to him by hand he backed off and started his "angry display".

Yeah. Never thought Petey would EVER refuse a noodle.

Oh and these were in the Goldenfeast Caribbean South mix I had purchased today to try out. The others seem to have enjoyed it as the bowls were mostly empty and little was found to have been tossed over to the ground.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Breaking through

And then there was a Lovebird...

Just so that Piper doesn't feel left out of my recent picture posting frenzy..





Piper is the hardest bird to take pictures of here. He won't stay still and most of the time, he tries to join me behind the camera...

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Dignified beauty II

You know, when she's not caught climbing curtains...



Dignified beauty I

Pixel definitively has a dignified beauty about her, specially when pictures are being taken.
Oh and her eyes are definitively improving in colour, getting closer to the bright red they ought to be.







Actually, both my little girls are very dignified when I take pictures, unless caught in the act of something they shouldn't do...

The money shot

Well if it hasn't been obvious before now with me starting a few picture threads this evening, I've taken some bird shots today.
I've tried to get a few of everyone, although some are more cooperative than others.

Petey is one of the harder birds to take pictures off, not standing still long enough and hiding behind things, etc.

But this...this is the "money shot" ;)



Totally unplanned, totally undignified (which is very un-Petey ;) ). I love it :)

I present to you Curtain Bird

Proof that my birds are able to misbehave.

This is the one thing I really do not like...when they, namely Shade and sometimes Zuri, go on the curtains..



Why?

Because it leads to this and this means possibly problems (namely trying to get over, although it's not very possible and trying to pry the stucco off the ceiling..)



I normally get them off before they get this high. But, for the sake of taking pictures to prove my point, I did let it slide a bit today.

Never mind how many different hanging gyms and other play areas they might have, curtains, right now, are the "hot" item.

What do you mean, this is bigger than my head?

"What do you mean this is bigger than my head???"


"Hmmm..maybe it is..."


"Ooops..loosing balance!"


The block of wood Zuri is playing with came from the Mother Pluckin' Avian Block Party Refill Kit.

Pixel update

I guess it's time to provide a little update on Pixel.

She's been with us for a little over a month now, close to two (on August 11th).

She's settling in fine. If anyone remembers, she was in a room with other birds, but had no specific cage. So whether or not she would adapt to being caged was somewhat of a concern and, from what I've seen, she's taken to her cage very well. I have no problem putting her back in when it's time to go in and she's finally started to really use all the different perches instead of clinging to the side of her cage (where she was before, there was a grate-type thing that acted as the door to the living room and when we went to see her, we did notice that she clung to those bars of metal like she did to the side of her cage when we first got her.

Her adaption with other birds.
She stays clear of Petey, moves when Zuri comes by and seems intrigued by Joey and wants to do like he does. The only thing I really have to watch is how she is with Shade. Shade is her direct "competition" for me and..well it has created some tiffs. While Shade no longer wants to attack like she did when Pixel first got here (and she has never done this before with any of the new additions), Pixel seems to want to try and get to her sometimes. But since this normally happens in the very close proximity of myself, I normally put a stop before she pushes Shade too far. It might also be some type of competition between the only two hens, I'm not sure.

As for her flight situation. Like I mentioned before, she had a few flight feathers on each side, not next to each other, most were clipped so when she went to the vet, she did get the strays clipped as well, to bring them back to the same level as the others (which were by no means clipped all that much) to balance things out. Now that the feathers are molting out, she's gaining more confidence in flying further and further and has made it a few times from the atom at one side of the living room all the way to myself sitting at the computer all the way to the other side of the room. Our living room is roughly 20' wide or so.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

I've got an escape artist...

Sigh.

I came home and did my round of checking that every bird is doing fine in their cage. Start with Pixie, move onto Joey then Petey (one side of the room), move onto Piper and then Shade....Shade's cage was empty. My heart stopped for a moment, I look up and there she is, happily waiting on her cage for me to ask her to step up (she does a little dance when she wants me to pick her up and I'm not fast enough).

Breath a sigh of relief, flip her on her back, check her toes (in case she felt like going on the bars of another cage and had someone bite her), then proceeded to check every other bird's toes (in case by being on another cage, she managed to get a toe). Every bird is fine.

Second sigh of relief.

She got out by a side door, the one holding her water bowl. I always close and lock it when I change water, I'm really trying to figure out how she managed to open it...

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Just received a Mother Pluckin' shipment of toys!

I did it. I ordered straight from Mother Pluckin'.
Well it's not entirely true. I joined in on an order a friend was doing. We had planned to do so for a while (cut shipping costs) and since I had heard of a sale which was going on on one of the parrot forums I follow, it just seem that now was the time to do so.

Here's what I got.



Since not everything shows up clearly, I got the following:

-medium atom
-acrylic ceiling protectors 12"
-small refillable stainless steel corkscrew
-mini waffle wafers - wood mixed (coloured + natural wood)
-avian mini maze munchers - wood mixed (coloured + natural wood)
-avian belgium waffle refill kit - wood mixed (coloured + natural wood)
-avian block party refill kit - wood mixed (coloured + natural wood) and all type of blocks

So far, the only thing that is up for everyone to see is one of the ceiling protectors - I put it on my already hanging atom (since the baby links that were holding it prior to this were menacing to snap at any moment..) and so far, it's managed to terrify Shade, Pixel and even Zuri. Joey, Petey and Piper don't seem to have any issues with the big terrifying blue piece of acrylic...

Saturday, July 24, 2010

A little observation...

Zuri is a fairly independent bird, specially if compared to my other Pois - he likes to play a lot and spends most of his time doing so and only comes to us for a bit of personal attention.

However, I have noticed that each time I bird sit and the extra birds then leave to go back home, for a few days following their departure he's a needy little guy - he wants to be on me / around me and can't get enough of his head scratched (which if I try to do any other time, unless he comes to me, I won't be able to do).

The result of this?

For a bit, I was sitting here this morning with Shade on my shoulder, Piper sitting on the pillow I normally keep between myself and the computer desk, Pixel on a table perch on the computer desk wanting her head scratched (and me following with her wishes) and Zuri on a perch in my lap getting his head scratched as well.

Friday, July 16, 2010

House of Pois

I went from having 5 of them to 7.....for just a week ;)

I'm bird sitting my mom's two Pois, a Senegal and a Meyer's.
Logistics behind taking every bird out are interesting...to say the least.

No pictures yet as I got them late in the evening and didn't really have time to take pictures this morning.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Portrait of Joey

As some of you readers might be aware of now, I'm slowly having paintings done of all of my birds. So far I have one of Shade and one of Piper, it recently was Joey's turn..and here it is



Oh and yeah, I was lazy this time around and used the picture that was sent to us by the artist instead of taking my own.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Pixel saying peek-a-boo

Pixel (and myself) saying peek-a-boo. Of course, I was repeating it to get her to say it...and can honestly say I've had enough of hearing me saying it (there's a lot of footage you won't see that ended up..err..deleted).

Her voice on the other hand is totally adorable

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Playful Joey

Joey playing with a toy that none of my birds have really touched since it was up there.

Pixel enjoying a head scratch

Pixel enjoying a head scratch.

You can also see towards the end that we still need to work on the step up command as she still has trouble with it.

Petey the paper shredder

I guess it's now obvious that I have been taking some videos of the birds today. I bought a new video camera not too long ago and figured it was time to start using it some more.

Here's a video of Petey happily shredding paper. He loves shredding paper more than chewing on wood.

Shade's struggle

Here's a short video of Shade's struggle at chipping away at a piece of wood of one of the many Rosie swings I have.

Petey's paper run

Petey loves paper.

He loves shredding it and he loves to do the following..which is to find a way to go underneath a few sheets and walk around while still being covered.