I love a good bird fair

Isn't he cute??

I went to the bird fair today to get the AGP a playstand. I got one from S&S Exotic perches (snsperches@aol.com) for $100. It's awesome.

It's got a hanging nut-log and food & water cups. It's on wheels, so we can set her up in other rooms in the house if we want. There's no toy hooks, but we can add those if it seems like a good idea later.

We were worried that she would be afraid of it, so I got her some pumpkin seeds for bribes. But The Birdfather's been gone all day, so she's sulking and wouldn't come out of her cage this evening. Consequently, we haven't had a chance to see if she'd panic or not.

The little guy in the picture was absolutely the cutest thing I saw all day. He was asleep in his little bassinet when I tried to take his picture, but the focusing assist lamp on my camera woke him up.

The AGP's little parakeet friend, who has never to my certain knowledge mimicked anything, gave us a crow call Thursday morning, and a Carolina Wren yesterday. Yay, Larry Bird!!

It's a lovely day out, here and so we took the AGP and the DOG outdoors with our book and newspaper for a couple hours this evening, early. It's the first day this fall it's been cool enough, and a small fan kept the 'skeeters at bay.

While we were sitting out, two hummingbirds, about a half hour apart, came to investigate the AGP's tail, just in case it turned out to be a big, red, flower full of nectar.

Hm.

Not sure what to make of this, but the AGP has recently taken to climbing down her open cage door to to a point just behind and above my head and saying, "Hello!" in that soft, sweet, sexy voice she learned from her first mama. Then yesterday, out of the blue, she climbed from the door to the back of my chair. She sat there for about 20 minutes, just keeping me company I guess, and enjoying the view from another perspective, then she went back up the door to the top. Later she did it again, only staying a minute or two.

No, we don't spoil 'em or anything. . .

I was talking to somebody the other day about the cages we have in our bird room, and the fact that the cages are so big that two birds has effectively become our limit!

Larry has one of these all to himself:

Caitec Flight Cage

Shared via AddThis

OW!

". . . surely parrots evolved from velociraptors."

-Rebecca K. O'Connor

I had to laugh. The AGP, obviously, is a prey species, not a hunter, but boy can she bite!

Finding information on parrot bites is tricky. I found a general conversation about bite strength that degenerated into a 'my pit bull is meaner than your pit bull' sort of argument, in which in passing it was mentioned that macaws have a bite pressure of 350 psi. No source listed. Another site, also unsourced, says 500-700 psi.

A Wikipedia article on companion parrots in general states that the larger parrots "have a jaw strength comparable to a large dog." I've never been bitten by a dog, so I have no opinion on that. The AGP, on the other hand, has bitten me any number of times over the past two years, and I can completely identify with the velociraptor analogy.

For a good, if brief, discussion of parrot bite strength, click here.

My parents went on vacation and left me here with a sitter

We went out of town last week, and the regular birdsitter was out of town too. The son of an old friend/neighbor/colleague of mine came to the rescue though. Despite a total lack of experience with fids, he did great. The AGP even learned a cute new whistle, for which the new sitter denies any responsibility.

To add insult to injury, the Birdfather took her for her annual checkup and a nail trim when he went to pick up the dog from the vet, and to salt the wounds he brought the dog back home.

I know the AGP thought, after a dogless week, that we were surely over that phase. She was really giving the dog the stinkeye in the car on the trip back!