Saturday, March 31, 2012

M. Mignon







(or Mr. Cutie in English)

Annoyed



Surprisingly, it wasn't because I was taking pictures, as she came closer to me while I was taking pictures of her brother.

What made her unhappy was Piper who decided to venture on the branch above her - and I had to remove Piper before she decided to strike (she did lunge at him when I removed him).

91:365 - Jojo



 One of his many nicknames..

More back play

Friday, March 30, 2012

90:365 - Back play



She didn't stand still for long today. Being on her back slowed her down just a bit.
She looked like she had fun.

Shade turns 6 today!

6.

Somehow, this is hitting me harder than when Piper turned 7 earlier this month.
I think it might have something to do that when I first saw Piper, he had been fully weaned and had already been through another home, albeit that was merely for a week or so and he had gone through a lot since then.

But Shade, I first saw as a little white puff ball and because of that, she's always been more of "the baby" in my eyes - at least until I saw Léa.

However, I think she'll always be "the baby".

She's grown into a wonderful companion parrot - she's the most easy going one in my whole flock, often the best behaved and I trust her with anyone (but I wouldn't say I would trust her to just anyone, just like any other of my birds). She's very good with other people, even kids. I guess I did something right.

Happy 6th Hatchday Shade!

Thursday, March 29, 2012

89:365 - What's up here?



Two Meyer's in a row.
When Zuri started looking up, I couldn't resist using one of those pictures to contrast Petey's picture for yesterday.

Take off!



 Totally lucky fluke.
 I was expecting it to be dark and blurry!

88:365 - What's down there?

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

87:365 - Exactly how I feel!



A picture of yawning Shade felt more than appropriate for tonight!

Photo shoot interrupted



The intent was to get a picture of Shade all on her own..

86:365 - Small bird, big Wingdow



Yesterday's picture once again, I have been very busy these last few days, might talk about more next week.
But for now, it's quite possible I upload these a few days late.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Twice no and other new sounds

So it seems that something I was waiting to happen finally did.

Léa has picked up no.

Surprisingly, so far she's used it very sparsely and (not so surprisingly) in context.

The other day, she was being very obnoxious and kept going on the couch even though I did not want her to and kept taking her off - it seemed a game for her but I didn't enjoy it. Eventually, my "get off" got said probably in a very fed up voice and when I got up to move her, she said "NO!" (or at least it really sounded like NO!) - but given it had only happened once at that time, I thought it might have been a fluke.

However, this morning she also told no to the Boy - she was on the bed and he wanted to move her so when he went to pick her up, she ran away saying "NO!"

As for other noises, her favorite random noise is still the phone dialing/ringing but lately she's also been very keen on doing raspberry noises and it's slowly coming up to rival phone noises!

Sunday, March 25, 2012

85:365 - Alert and intrigued



She caught sight of those same pigeons Léa always makes a fuss about as they seem to have chosen to stay on our balcony. We do try to get them to leave but they seem oblivious at our efforts at times.

Pixel, contrary to Léa, just kept staring at them intently.

On another note, this is the beginning of week #13 in the project.

84:365



Yesterday's picture - it was a busy day and while I remembered to take the picture, I didn't really have time, nor was my mind, up to dealing with the following process.

Can't take a bad picture of cutie Piper!

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Mr. Handsome

Hi everyone!

There seems to be quite a bit of confusion around here as to who is the handsomest bird - it seems that Zuri Meyer's thinks he has a shot at it.

But really, we all know it's me!








What do you think?

~Joey




P.S. Mom says we are both equally handsome, but I think she needs to realize that I'm more awesome!

Friday, March 23, 2012

Got a nice surprise today!

Ever since I brought Léa home I've been offering her some TOPs (pellets).

She mostly ignored them and we would change them up every second day in the hopes that one day she'd finally eat them regularly.

Well, it seems things might start turning around!

Today when I let her out after work I noticed that her pellet bowl was all empty!

Later, once the bowl had been replenished, it was out in the living room on the computer desk to see what Léa would do - and she willingly went to eat a few of them!

Good progress! :D

83:365 - My head is itchy too!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

82:365 - This is Petey



He's "particular"..

Dopey



I have 7 birds, there were 7 of them.
Wonder if any other occasions will arise to associate a bird to any of them..

Quotes

Heard a few minutes ago, from the Boy of course.

To Léa -

"Léa did you just do the squeaky door noise???"

Then, to me -

"Did you hear that? Didn't it sound like that? I don't think I like that!"


All the while I'm giggling because this reminds me of my friend's Kacy's own Cape Mali and her squeaky door noises.

Léa does NOT like pigeons!

She loves her Wingdow.

Given the weather is getting nicer and nicer and the sun is up until late, I do bring her Wingdow in the living room with me in the afternoon (it's in the bedroom in the morning as she is there with the Boy at that time).

For some reason, our balcony is a prime hanging out spot for pigeons. I hate it, given they do leave a lot of their poo behind, which makes me really reluctant to bring the birds out in cages to get some sun rays. I feel that even if we cleaned thoroughly, it would be a pointless thing as I'd be paranoid about having missed a spot, it wouldn't stay clean for very long and the birds would possibly catch some disease.

So, for now, a Wingdow is as close as they'll get to going outside.

But to come back to the subject at hand, Léa seems to be particularly against these pigeons. If one has the unfortunate idea of coming and perching on our balcony, she gets uneasy. If there are two or more...she goes berserk. Just now, a pair of pigeons decided to take in the beautiful sun on my balcony. When she spotted them she starting screaming, a very alert and not playful scream (a scream that actually got the Boy concerned) and started flying around the room, landing for a few seconds, seeing that the pigeons were still there, screaming and taking off again.

Not pleasant.

I managed to chase the pigeons by tapping the window and Léa returned to her Wingdow, happy as a clam, chewing away at wood and mumbling happily.

I really can't wait to move - and we are making progress for this to happen in the next few months.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Léa randomness

What's that noise??!



(the answer - some Canada geese that were honking)

Happily chomping on some cholla once the geese went away..









Don't take away my cholla!

80:365 - Itchy


"Scratch me"

It's pin feather season here, as I have a few "pin heads" among the flock..come to think of it, they all seem to have a few itchy pins that need to be taken care of. And given that Shade really mostly insists on getting her head done by Zuri, that leaves Zuri coming to me.

Both Red bellies also come to me to get their head groomed.

Piper goes to me or to the Boy.

As for Petey..I wouldn't dare touch his pinny head!

Monday, March 19, 2012

Stealthy Ninja Bird

And it's not in a good way.

Joey can be very noisy - in fact, most of the time he's a boisterous little guy. But there are also the moments where he covets something, something he shouldn't have, and he suddenly becomes the most quiet bird out there.

So quiet, calm and still that you slowly forget to keep a constant vigilant eye on him since he's being so good.

And then he strikes.

He quietly goes towards the coveted item, stopping along the way a few times as to not raise suspicion. Then, still without making a sound, he lets himself lose on the item he so desired.

This is how we came, earlier tonight, to end up with a very chewed up Wii nunchuk cable.

The worst part? He tried that cycle a few times tonight and both the Boy and I interrupted him before he made any damage. You would think we would have kept a more vigilant eye on him as a result..

79:365 - Bird on a mission



He didn't stay put for very long..

Sunday, March 18, 2012

78:365 - Chewing cholla



She was having a lot of fun chewing and rotating that piece of dried cholla!

A splash of colour

Female Red bellies can be colourful!





Love you?

I was playing with Léa this morning, mostly to prevent her annoying the Boy in the kitchen, and she was mumbling a lot of things and then something came out that sounded like "Love you". Really sounded like it. But given how she was just being Miss Chatterbox and issued a lot of random noises as well, I couldn't be sure.

Later on, while I was trying to take pictures of her, she would fly back to me (she's a tricky one) and when she would manage to land on me, she would make a few more noises. And twice more I heard what sounded like "Love you".

I'll be keeping an ear open for that one and hope she does repeat it!

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Piper went to the vet today

I had mentioned in one of the earliest posts following my return from Germany that I had noticed Piper's beak growing a bit funny and I had assume it was the result of a previous injury to his beak he sustained from Petey (a few years ago).

Unfortunately, my vet was on vacation at the time and I don't want to trust just anyone do so some beak work and since it didn't really seem to bother Piper all that much, I preferred waiting for her return. The earliest appointment I could have was for today.

The vet agreed with my early assumption that the overgrowth on the one side of the lower mandible was due to the previous injury. As well, she confirmed another thing I found a bit weird about his beak, that the other side of the superior mandible was also growing a bit long, again due to the injury (which occurred on the lower mandible on that same side).

She filed everything down and even. Piper wasn't too pleased but still cooperated for the most part.

Some pictures taken after the vet visit.















The injury happened back in October 2008 so it did take a long time for any obvious signs to appear. I'll be keeping a close look on his beak to see if it start to grow uneven again, but given how easily it was to bring his beak back to "normal" (minus the indentation that will always be there because of the injury), I think this were still caught pretty early this time around.

A Petey photo shoot

Since he was quite willing to participate in having his picture taken today, I took full advantage!

Some of my favorite shots -





With a big Poi smile