Mischief

OK – Emelio has been driving me a little crazy lately. In fact they all have.

Last week Alex would rather bite me than look at me. This week he’s back to normal – same with Classy and Peeper. Hormones? Your guess is as good as mine.

Anyway – back to Mr. Yo. See the three glass canisters on the counter? Lately he’s been obsessed with them. Earlier this week he stood up on his tip toes and pulled the largest one over; probably just to hear me freak out. He loves that and feeds on the drama. He did it again a little later that night. I can’t believe they didn’t break. I should have known when he first did it that it would become his new thing (musta been off my game).

Now you’re probably wondering why I didn’t just move them. That’s a good question – for which I have a good answer. Those canisters have been there since the time we moved the birds into that room; no problem. If I can wait out the obsession, things will go back to normal once he moves on to something else. I just have to remember not to get upset about it because he can feel it even if I say nothing. (Yup – it’s scary.)

You can see that my solution was to block the canisters in while Emelio is on the counter. The wood thing is Peeper’s cage top play stand. The cardboard box contains a gallon freezer bag filled with rice to make it heavy enough that the bird can’t move it. I use it to keep him on one side of the counter if there’s something I don’t want him getting into on the other side. When I place it at the edge of the sink he can’t get around it and he can’t squeeze behind the faucets either (believe me, he’s tried.)

For the past 2 or 3 days this worked, but Mr. doesn’t give up easily. Tonight he climbed up on the smallest canister and was trying to knock over the large one that way. He still thinks if he pulls hard enough he can do it. I think if given enough time he's right!



When he realized that I noticed him, he tried to step backwards and down, but it was just a little too high for him to feel the counter with his foot so he was stuck there. Mark went to get the camera and that motivated Emelio to find another way. (For some reason he seems not to want his picture taken when he’s up to no good.) He turned and faced the sink, then hopped off the canister and proceeded to monster-walk toward the camera like he was going to snatch it and toss it out the window. Very menacing; don't you think?

Happy Halloween!

Cathy

Machismo

I was just upstairs to change water and give the birds their morning treat. As I walked by his cage, Classy slipped off his perch and was hanging onto it by his beak. It’s not a long fall – his feet were less than one inch from the bottom, but the distress in his eyes indicated he didn’t want to fall even that far. I reached in and rescued him, then hugged and kissed him and returned him to his cage.

He immediately rushed to his seed bowl and began hurling seed at me, then shot me a nasty look and assumed a macho stance while glaring at me. I’m sure he was showing me how tough he is and that he certainly didn’t need to be rescued.

Classy is such a contradiction. He’s either Mr. Macho or Mr. Lover – there’s no in-between. I get such a kick out of him.

Mark, on the other hand, isn’t really that amused. He still has the remnants of the bruise as a result of an incident last week. Mark has to be on his toes when Classy is on top of his cage or he gets nailed. Apparently he let his guard down, because Class ended up hanging from the inside of his upper arm – ye-ouch!

Cathy