Morning Calling

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I woke up to the sound of the birds this morning – or maybe I should say to Alex yelling. The bird room is right above our bedroom so I can hear most everything without a problem and I could probably hear Alex if I was dead! He worked himself up into a deafening screaming session – it doesn’t last very long, maybe 3 or 4 screams, but that’s more than enough!
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Apparently Emelio thought so too, because I could hear him tell Alex to knock it off each time he screamed. When that didn’t work Emelio started to whistle a song. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that Emelio was doing exactly what I do when I want Alex to stop screaming; I distract him by singing – which he loves – and he joins in.
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I know I’ve said this before, but it constantly amazes me how much the birds pick up on what we do. Sometimes I actually try to hide what I’m doing so they won’t copy it. For example, when I was cleaning Alex’s cage the other day I had to lift the top to clean it and I didn’t want him to try to do the same thing. His cage is from a different manufacturer than the other six cages. It had to be assembled; the others did not – they’re welded. The top bars are one piece that just sets on a ledge, so if you move it too far one way, it falls in. I’m not crazy about that part of the design, but in order to get a cage that size up the stairs we had to have one that wasn’t pre-assembled.

Anyway, as I was cleaning it I pushed it too far and the damn thing fell into the cage. There was no hiding that from Alex – he was sitting on the t-stand in the middle of the room watching everything I did. I had to zip tie the top to the side when I was done to try to prevent him from doing the same thing. I’m sure Alex will remove them sooner or later – this isn’t the first time we put the zips on the cage – so this time Mark will have to come up with a more permanent solution. I’m afraid he’ll be injured if he knocks that top in. It’s not an unfounded fear – the lady that I got Spike from had a hyacinth macaw that did exactly that. Luckily he wasn’t hurt, but you just can’t count on that.

Cathy