Weather

It's rain season here in Florida, which, in a nut shell, means it rains..a lot. When it is not raining, it's hot...and muggy..and basically, yuck all the way around.

The birds are thriving in this though. Understandable, it feels like the Amazon rain forest out there so their quite at home and love being rotated out into the heat and wet. Kenya is loving it. The only water she lets touch her is rain anyway so it's good to get her out there and take advantage while we can.

On the other hand, any outdoor activity I do, must be done and completed before 10 am. After that I'd melt, or at least wish I would. So for the last week or so I have been walking Gunnar, rain or shine at about 7:30 am. It's the only out door activity I can get normally during the week, and now with the rain, the only thing I get to do on the weekends as well.

I wish my neighborhood was interesting enough to post pictures of, but I think if I walked around with my camera and just started randomly shooting, people would get suspicious and want to know -what- I thought I was doing. I highly doubt the explanation of "There was this nifty bird in the bush by your window." would exactly sooth things over any.  :(

So unfortunately no picture posts for a little while at least. The good thing about all this icky weather is I have gotten a lot of art done and I am thinking about opening an Etsy shop to try and sell it in. I have found a source to get my art put on note cards and they have been turning out really nicely. So what the heck. I'll give it a try and see what happens. Nothing ventured, nothing gained right?

Wait - What did you call me?

As I have said before, Kenya, our Congo African Grey prefers my husband to me. In fact if I were to suddenly disappear from the house I doubt highly that this would bother her much at all. Well, she might miss having someone to terrorize and lunge at when feeding time comes around.

Because of her rather intense mistrust/dislike of me, she doesn't talk much when I am the only one in the house, and defiantly not if I am in the same room as her. That is not to say that she doesn't make noise while John is at work. She whistles and calls the dogs, by name, on occasion. She also tosses her food out of her cage, one pellet at a time to lure the dogs in so she can get a closer look at them when she is bored.

Her favorite time to talk during the work day is while I am typing at the computer. For a few reasons, First and foremost, I am not in the same room as she is. This is important because she is not relaxed with only me in the room. I can ignore her or talk to her, it doesn't matter, she just does not trust me. The second reason is that even though I am not in the same room she can still see me, therefore making sure I am not trying to sneak up on her. The third reason seems to be her trigger though, they clackity-clack of the keyboard for what ever reason seems to make her want to talk. So the moment I start typing she starts chattering with hellos, good girl/boys and Whooos.

My typical morning routine for the last... oh lets say 6 months with her has gone something like this:

I wake up, roll out of bead and shuffle to the bedroom door and open it.
Kenya: John?

Me: No, I'm Mommy, not John.
I continue to shuffle in silence to the bathroom. Kenya makes no noise, echo stars his morning chorus of greetings, IE. Hello, Ole, and HI!
I come out of the bathroom and shuffle towards the living room.
Kenya: John?

Me: No, it's still Mommy.

Now remember, Greys are pretty swift on the uptake. If they want to learn a word they do it fast. Case in point, I was teaching Echo to say "I'm a little stinker." Because he is. Kenya picked up on stinker and thats all she wanted to learn, so now she just sing-songs stinker at any given moment. This happened in less then 2 days after I started, so yea, if she wants to know a word she learns it, fast. So any hopes that I had of her saying my name or addressing me at all flew out the window a long time ago.

So today, as I was sitting here typing an e-mail I was half listening to her babble when I heard this...
"I love you......Bobby." I have to admit my fingers tripped all over themselves and I had to close my eyes and listen closely because I knew she would say it again and she did, and it was Bobby and not Mommy, but hell, I was tearing up anyway because that is the first time in the last 4 years that she has acknowledged my existence with out drawing blood, or trying to.

And yea, I'm a sucker.

Fun Day

To day is going to be a fun day. How do I know? Because since my husband has left for work the birds have been talking and talking and talking in ways that has me giggling like a mad woman.

Echo: I love you
Kenya:*wolf whistle* I love you toooooo!
Duke: Hello
Kenya: Helloooo Stink-ER!

This has been repeating over and over again with small variations on the theme. For instance Kenya saying "Hello Echo." Followed by "You Stink-ER!" She really emphasizes the er part in Stinker.

Morning

I am not a morning person. I never have been. My body wakes up hours before my brain does so to say I am grouchy or cranky in the morning is an understatement. The good thing about this is I basically just sit and grumble until my brain catches up with the rest of me which tends to lead to some pretty quiet mornings.

Yesterday morning my normal grumpy mood was being bullied by a lot of back pain, lending me to be not quite my usual growly self, more of a whimpering state actually. I shuffled out of my room hunched over like I should be residing in a bell tower someplace, my bed head and half mast eyelids just giving the whole bell tower theory more credence. I made my way through the living room to a hail of greetings like every morning...but not quite.

Echo: "Hola!"
Me: "Hola Echo."
Duke: "Hello!"
Me: "Good Morning, Duke."
Kenya: "Go Lay Down!!"
Me: "I just got up."

Gotta love those morning conversations with the feathered ones. Kenya has never minced words and always seems to find just the right phrase for the moment. ;)

Napping is good

Most of us have good days and bad days. Some of us can even tell when our moods rub off on the people around us. Fewer can see when our moods rub off on the animals around us. Even few then that let our animals moods rub off on us. I am not sure who started the cranky pants party over here but it was in full swing between the grumpy bear husband and the cranky African Grey, all weekend long.

What brings on this crankiness, no one knows, what we do know is when the crankiness happens, keep repeating "I love you." as much as possible. Husbands saying "I love you too" have less time to contemplate stabbing you in the eye with a fork. ;) Which since I like my eyes un-fork-ified, is a good thing.

So in the middle of all the cranky, it was deemed that both Man and Parrot should take a darn nap already. So they did and of course, I took pictures. (Click pictures to enbiggen)

Snuggling into the couch for a nap. Towel instead of blanket because bird poop is messy.

Smooches then nighty night.

Bear passes out.

Bird passes out.

Spontanious snuggling. Awwwwwwwwww.

It was very hard to keep from giggling during the napping. Every time John would move, Kenya would wake up say "Ooooo" and smooch him either on the lips or somewhere in his beard. The noise always preceded the smooch and I found this highly amusing. I actually had to leave the room when one "smooch" got a little ruff. Laughing at them might not have helped with the cranky. :3

Bad Bird Day

Just like having a bad hair day, it seems that every feathered occupant here is having an off feather day.

Duke has not stopped screaming all day, I finally had to cover him to give my migraine a rest. Kenya almost "got me" when I was feeding her. Echo let out an alert scream right on my ear as I was feeding him. Pedro is upset and yells at me every time I walk past him. In fact, the only bird that seems happy to see me today is Lou, and I am just not falling for it.

Settling down

Things are finally finding a flow in the house. I was up early this morning, I went straight into feeding the flock and quieting everyone down. They can get quite loud in the morning.

Everyone gets bird bread in the AM. It's a basic corn bread/apple juice mixture with anything we have in the fridge they can eat mixed and baked. Almost everybody gobbles it down before I have a chance to walk away from their cage.

Duke now only eats when he is on the play stand. I put a foraging toy in his cage about 2 hrs ago in hopes that it will encourage him to eat when he is in there. I hope it works.

Echo seems to be relaxing around Duke. He isn't really screaming when Duke gets close anymore. Things are looking up.

Kenya is still eating anything I offer her. Defiantly a plus. She is also very curious about Duke. She watches him all the time and moved to the side of her cage that is closest to him when he is on the stand.

Lou has been talking a lot when I leave the room. Right now he is calling out "step up" and "Peek-a-boo". He may want to see me, so he knows where I am, or maybe he wants to lure me in for a bite, who knows. I think he wants out and is trying to be cute so I forget which bird he is and open the cage door. But I am suspicious like that. ;)

I have been trying to switch the birds to a organic pellet this week. It's going slowly as any food switch does. Pedro is completely switched over, and Echo is mostly there as well. I hope the others fall into line as well. The new pellet is much better for them.

Who are you and what have you done with Kenya?!?

I have spoken before about my Congo African Grey, Kenya, and her extreme fear reaction to anything "new".

"New" can be anything, from toys to perches to people to..food. :( She has been known to throw herself off perches to get away from her food bowl because I put a tiny sliver of apple in it. o_O

So how has Kenya become my best eater in only a few weeks?

Seriously, someone tell me 'cause I have no clue. Not only is she eating everything that hits her dish with vigor...I caught her actually playing with toys yesterday. O_O I have actually been catching her playing a lot lately, so again I ask...

Who are you strange Congo African Grey, and what have you done with Kenya?

I really need to try and figure out what brought this turn in her on, so I can repeat it for some of the other birds.

Kenya the Explorer

Kenya, the Congo African Grey, does not like new things. This is because my husband and I did not know much about Greys when we got her and did not introduce her to new things constantly as a young parrot. We have been paying the price for that mistake ever since.

I have taken it upon myself, since I am home all day, to try and slowly get her used to new things and become more adventurous now that she is inside again. I have never been a huge fan of Greys. Honestly, Greys and Macaws scare me. My worst bites have been from them, in fact, when I worked at the pet store I could guarantee that anytime I worked with the Greys I would be bitten, at some point, by all of them. So yea, I don't trust them. (Mainly because I haven't figured out how to read them yet.)

So yesterday I decided to open Kenya's cage and put the bird stand against the door. Otherwise she just closes the door until John comes home and I did not want her to have that option. In less then an hour she was checking out the stand. Not getting on it, but chewing a perch and overall checking it out.

I was excited. Not only was she hanging on the outside of her cage dealing with a new object but she ended up on the top of the cage playing with all the D-rings that hold her toys. She also started to dismantle the play top by pulling all the bolts out, but I digress. ;)

Here she is spying a bolt.

Everything went well until something spooked her and she careened to the floor and decided to take her frustration out on an antique trunk. I tried shooing her away from it but ended up having to catch her in a towel and put her back in the cage.

It was fun while it lasted though. :D

Bonus Post!

It took a while but I just caught Kenya playing with the toy I put in her cage last week. I wasn't quick enough to get a picture, but I am so very proud of her getting over her fear quicker then normally.

She is defiantly coming out of her shell now, she's been yakking at me all day.

Yey Kenya! You go girly bird! :D

Abierto - Cerrado

Fab Friday video time!

This week I thought I would give Kenya the spotlight, so here she is swinging on her cage door.




Have a great weekend everyone. See you on Monday.

Lazy Dayz

It was a quiet day yesterday. I slept in, did a little house cleaning and put a new toy in Kenya's cage. She is not happy with me for this. When she is not giving the toy an evil glare, she is giving it to me.

This is par for the course for her. Usually I have John take her out of the cage and out of the room before doing any "redecorating" in her cage. As long as she doesn't -see- it done, she is normally fine with minor changes. Major ones still are met with a WTH reaction, but she gets over it.

Right now she is backed in a corner staring at "the toy" waiting for it to do something so that she can scream at me for putting it in there. If she doesn't relax sometime today I will have to take it out and wait for John to occupy her so I can do come cage arrangement.

We'll just have to see how it goes.

Bringing the outside in

We moved Kenya inside Monday night. The living room is starting to get a tad crowded but I don't mind much.

Kenya is in the white cage by the windows. She likes watching the world go by. Duke is in the top of the duplex and Echo is the one hanging upside down in the bottom.

It seems Kenya has really picked up a variety of wild bird sounds. I know this because I thought I had a flock of house sparrows running a muck somewhere in the house when I woke up this morning. :D Noise like that I can get used to.

I had her cage door open all day and she never moved near it, in fact, she closed the door when I wasn't looking. I thought John had done it before he left, but no, he left and she shut the door. I guess since her "man" wasn't there she had no use of it being open.

Later that night though she came out of her shell and hung around with us.

"Back off lady, I am here for my man."

"Go on, shoo!"

"Don't make me come over there."

She pretty much hung on the door while she open and closed it. It was fun for her so who am I to argue, just her coming out was a step in the right direction. I did manage to take this shot....

just a second before she took a suicide leap off her cage and onto my foot. O.O John had just left the room and apparently she thought I drove him away and was going to tell me personally just how pissed off that made her.

We won't go into the high pitched squeal I let out when she did that. Nor will we mention me yanking my foot up to my chest to avoid her beak and the possible loss of toes.

It's a work in progress...for both of us.

What do I do, with a bird like you?

As I have mentioned before, not all the birds in my house like me. Of the five large birds, I have one that is indifferent (Duke), one that likes me fine as long as I stay away from her cage (Kenya) and one that's out to get me (Lou).

To tell you the truth, I will take indifference over dislike and hate any day of the week. Duke prefers my husband. Not that he has anything against me per say but he was hand raised by his first owner, who was an elderly man and Duke has not had good luck with women. So his trust factor is just more in tune to my husband. He has nibbled me twice, never broken the skin and both times were when I was putting him into his cage when John was home. But even though he doesn't really trust me, he lets me pick him up and scratch his head. He also talks to me all day long, so we really do fine for the most part. It also helps that I am the “Goddess of Goodies” so that wins me major points with him.

Lou hates me, and I have given up trying for anything more then a long distance relationship with him. I like my fingers attached to my body, thank-you-very-much, and I plan on keeping them that way.

Kenya is another one that prefers my husband, but unlike Duke, she bites me and draws blood anytime she gets a clean shot at me. Unfortunately Kenya is a special needs bird. She is supposed to have physical therapy on her foot 3x a day. My husband works all day long, so it's on me to do this. I hate to say it's been over a year since I have.

I can't get her out of her cage. She throws herself around and ends up hurting herself. I have tried letting her come out on her own and she throws herself to the floor and attacks if I get to close. We won't even get to the part where if you actually touch her feet she throws a hissy fit.

So I have been looking up training tips on how to try and get her to accept me. I am the one that hand fed her gosh darn it, she should at least tolerate me somewhat. So I am on a mission, and my google-fu is ready, and I find this little snippet.

African Greys can be more challenging to befriend than other parrot species, because they're smarter and very cautious by nature.

I foresee a whole lot of fun in my near future. Yey. I can't wait. rolls eyes

My Competition..

This is Kenya. Kenya is a Congo African Grey and has made it abundantly clear that she is John's bird. Kenya was given to us by a breeder. Her parents stepped on her wrong in the nest and broke both of her legs as a chick. The vet did a good job patching her up, but her feet are a bit splayed and one foot does not grip very well. Because of this, she is not keen on being held and can not perch on our hands like a normal bird.

What she does like is John. She likes to sit with John, talk to John and just be with John. She also enjoys...biting me, yelling at me, pooping on me and just being very clear that if it were not for me, she and my husband would be very happy together.

Being an African Grey, Kenya is a talker. Her favorite voice to mimic is mine. Why me? Because John responds quicker to my voice. Her favorite phrases to date are, “John?”, “Baby?”, and “Are you eating?” Compare her top three to Echo's top three which are, “Hello.”, “I love you.” and “Whatcha doing?”

Now all six phrases are learned from me, the difference is that Echo repeats what I say to him and Kenya repeats what I say to John. We have taught Kenya words, like "Hello", and "I love you". She just seems to prefer phrases from conversations that do not include her. A reminder to always watch what you say around your parrots, because you never know what they might pick up.