Updates and Musings About Life with Parrots
The other day I was feeling like I needed more snuggle time with Mika. So a little bit before their regular bedtime, I put an almond in Stewie’s cage and put him away for the night, thinking this would give me extra time to hang out with my pionus girl. However, as soon as Mika…
Read More...
We just got the BEST comment on our YouTube channel ever! (Seriously, best ever!) It was a response to Stewie’s “how loud is a sun conure” video. Most of the responses to that video are along the lines of “OMG that’s annoying” or “I love sun conures despite their screams.” The best comments so far…
Read More...
Stewie has been on a shredding kick. He can pull apart a conure-sized parrot pinata in a few hours. Here’s a quick video clip of him making very satisfied conure noises. (Don’t mind Mika squeaking in the background.) He doesn’t quite get into “eeeeh of glee” mode, but he’s still quite happy. Contrast this to…
Read More...
Today marks the 3-year anniversary of when I brought Stewie home from the Arlington Animal Welfare League. During our first few months together, he bit the snot out of me often enough. Eventually we started to understand each other a little better. Now, after three years, I can tuck him into my shirt, rub his…
Read More...This is currently my favorite talking budgie video: You know why I love it? Because for the bird to love saying “I’m so happy to see you!” that much, you know he’s probably heard it a million times. And that’s what’s awesome: the part you don’t see, the guy telling his budgie how happy the…
Read More...
In my last post, I wrote about Mika’s progress learning how to fly. It’s been two weeks and I haven’t repeated the exercise of luring her with her favorite junk food, but she has undertaken a couple more attempts at landing somewhere specific… with mixed results. Just goes to show that a parrot learning to…
Read More...
For a while now I’ve been trying to put together photos of different types of body language my parrots exhibit to show people what an angry parrot looks like, a scared bird, a happy parrot, etc. In trying to study and document Stewie’s body language, however, I invariably have to introduce additional stimulus that completely…
Read More...
We recently chatted with Irena Schulz, founder of the avian rescue Bird Lovers Only, which is best known for being home of Snowball the Dancing Cockatoo. Just over two years ago, Irena posted a video of Snowball dancing to the Backstreet Boys and this Medium Sulphur Crested Eleanora Cockatoo skyrocketed to viral video fame. Irena…
Read More...I was just checking stats for our YouTube channel, and one of our videos has well over 25,000 views on it. Which one, you ask? Of course it’s the one of Stewie screaming his little sun conure head off. None of the others come even close. Okay, so my little video star isn’t nearly as…
Read More...
After a whole year of watching Mika enjoying head scratches, Stewie has decided that he’s going to allow me to touch him. Not just touch him, but rub his neck and pinch the keratin off his new feathers! Pin feathers are itchy and uncomfortable and, in the wild, parrots engage in allopreening to help each…
Read More...Just a quick story: The other night, I got a call from the ACLU asking for a donation to support their investigation of waterboarding at Guantanamo. The whole time, of course, my orange ball of terror is “vocalizing” to express his unhappiness about me being on the phone. At the end of the call, the…
Read More...
