Upbeat - news

[ChristaNL]

LOL Today Sunny refused the shower, she wanted the bath!

I am really getting better at being a trained servant, she kept ogling the thing and leaning on her showerperch.

She wants to step in the bath when it is mostly empty, letting it fill (raining it full).
First the head and beak get 'cleaned' with swiping sideways in the water and only when the water is deep enough she deploys the wings and raises all the feathers on her back etc.etc. Lots of tailwagging as well.

One huge happy soak.

-

She is building some more feathers in the tail (smaller ones) and is ever so slowly growing a primary on her most challenged wing. And I mean slooooooow, it's been growing and being super-sensitive for almost 2 months now and it is almost pinkylenght so it has a huge amount of growing still to do (and she is not particularly happy about it) so fingers crossed she will leave those ones (and the ones she grew the past months) in peace.
(there are some signs of overbarbering, but nothing like she used to do)

 

[LaManuka]

Oooh great! Tail wagging, yippee!! You’re definitely onto a winner there!

 

[ChristaNL]

Oh dear... I missed her first anniversary (here, that is)

I was looking in the archives (thank you gmail!) and we picked her up at the previous home on sunday the 28th of januari.
Not a big deal, but I forgot completely.

Her hatchday is the 5th of march, so we'll have the big party then

We are expecting an Owl of course
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4f/27/b3/4f27b3723ac1f1eadd35b3e8e3755426.png

Maybe plunk her cage in the cupboard under the stairs?
(Yes I actually have one! - it's where I keep the extra parrottoys etc./ when they are not just all over the place ...)

=


News... not much, she just got in the POTM - januari, so you can all see her
and we are working with The Deadly Nailfile of Doom.

Yup, she went from complete hysterics and violent biting it to letting it actually touch her nails for a few seconds.
She stayed put long enough to watch Japie descending into heavenly bliss when I filed his nails ...her eyes almost popped out of her head!
After that she was willing to give it a go - a few seconds at the time. :40:


=


A year-and-a-day :jumping40

 

[Laurasea]

Sunny is very beautiful!!!! Happy one year and one day!!! She has a very delicate face, just beautiful. Glad I finally got to see her.

 

[ChristaNL]

Oh boy... I was thrilled to see some personality finally shining through that stressed out/ zoomed out/ zombied-to-the-max bird, but she is really starting to live up to the "class clown" reputation B&G's are suposed to have.

Just now I was cursing my lack of picturetaking options... :34:


There she was, sitting on the open door of someones cage, a bit hunched over because it is feather-fixing time.
Then she made me do a double-take...

she was balanced on one leg, the left one under her wing- brought forward so she could rest her entire foot on her head!

So...yea, parrots can scratch their own head...nothing really shocking about that, right?

Then I realised she had one of the toenails POKING INSIDE HER NOSE.


(Yes I am mortified as welll as amused to bits: my darling, wellbred *ahem* macaw picks her nose in public and is loving it! )






(it was the outside hindfacing toe, that has a *huge* nail, in her left nostril)

 

[Laurasea]

So why wasn't a picture taken?!

 

[ChristaNL]

Laura: obviously because you were not there to do it

 

[LaManuka]

I usually find if my guys are doing something super cute, and I get the camera and/or phone out, they stop what theyre doing immediately and usually come over to inspect the camera. Maybe you need multiple surveillance cameras that you can remotely control to get the best of the crazy behaviour.

 

[ChristaNL]

Another fun moment...

towels
after getting towled (and getting knocked out) at the vet and not being happy about that at all, she has been less than relaxed about them (to put it mildly), so I have been doing some incidental work with them whenever it was convenient.

Just the basics... letting her be around them, using them (bathroom) myself, draping the greys (who are not a fan but do not really mind either) when she was watching and sometimes (the past few weeks) just lightly touching her.

Today I placed her on top of a towel I just put on the floor and she decided not to run away or attack it.
So we were playing (messing about with a small waterbottle) and in between throws and jumps, grabbing and chasing the silly thing I was playing with the towel as well, and draped her...dropped it on her....wrapped her....turned her upside down and rolled her over...
All the time letting her work off any potential stress / take it out on the toy instead of me or even worse: herself.
She was having so much fun!
Not a single moment of fear, escaping, backpeddling etc. etc. .


So another milestone: she really does not mind the towel (when she is in the right mood anyway). :40:

 

[Jen5200]

Well that is cool that she could play with one - mine fly fast and far when a towel appears....

 

[ChristaNL]

I am am somewhat chaotic and haphazard in what I train/play.
One of the things I really liked about Salty (one of the first birds I met here) - he gets his training every day, on the clock and it shows! That is one bird with a huge trick-set as well as a great home.

This towel-thing did not just happen overnight, but it is also not the result of a trainingprogramm esp. focused on her desensitizing to it.
I just went by how much she could take every certain moment, and since she is 'new' (here) and has a boatload of things to learn/ get used to/etc..

She also was ready to bolt in the beginning (if she could have, she would have!) - so I did not push.
"Familiarity breeds contempt" really works for birds as well.

You know that look (and stance) they get when they stop worrying about/ reacting to something in their life.


and yes- she previously bit a few huge holes in one as well
(a good thing I have a lot of really old towels -> no big loss there)

This is where we got after half a year or so of casual stretching her boundries.
(A great trainer could have 'forced&cleared the issue' in a few days, I think- but we both needed our time.)


Picking up a macaw was not the wisest thing to do - when it comes to (lack of) livingspace, finances, skin-integrety (my bad probably ) all the broken and damaged itemes/clothes etc. and everything common sense.
But I love her, the journey, the challenges.
She is a great teacher.


(and I really enjoyed making a macaw-burito)

 

[LaManuka]

Hej Christa, that “just for fun” entry of yours in last month’s POTM contest, you oughta enter that officially for this month. The loving look on Sunny’s face in that shot ... you are onto a winner there for sure!

 

[ChristaNL]

LaManuka: won't that be boring to people?
Some (if not most) will have seen it already

=

OMG... Sunny is going to out-talk the greys! :40::20:

After my workday she decided to talk up a storm!
(I was out of sight so no idea if it was a practice-session or if she was trying to impress me. Anyway I *was* impressed! )

Sunny came in with some vocabulary already (she can say "hello" in about 14 different voices, including the !!'s and ?'s - if you are on display in a shop people do not get very creative I guess), but she is now starting to sound like me "Ja?" (translating for you guys) "do you like it" "is it nice" "more water?" "what is this?", she even did one of the complicated grey-sounds! (another one)

The greys are not great talkers anymore because I prefer to whistle and chirp myself, but Sunny is a word-junkie!

-
I did a feathercount yesterday, because she is growing another tailfeather- she now has 8! large ones. :jumping40

The primary wingfeathers I wrote about before are really growing soooo slowly (almost like human hair slow, 2 mm a week maybe?) but .. they are still there.
But I have never seen something so "taking forever" on a bird. :33:
It really is "painfully slow".
(they are soooo sensitive working with the wings has become quite a challenge the pas few months)

A huge tailfeather is completely grown in just a few weeks, so this is really weird, the pin-feather-part/outher sheet is also very thick (diameterwise) but the feather that emerges seems to be normal (there is a fingertip of feather protruding now.

Patience is a virtue ...
(I really lack :09: )

 

[Laurasea]

Best update! Love the talking and all those tail featheres!

 

[Jen5200]

Such awesome updates . I love hearing about her progress!

 

[LaManuka]

Bored with that photo? You gotta be kidding me! No-one could possibly get bored with the loving expression on Sunny’s beautiful face and if they did they’re on the wrong forum!

 

[ChristaNL]

Today was one of the semi-large birdmarkets and I 'had' to go there to buy another bird for my workplace. Not much choice in the House Finch (mexicaanse roodmus/ Haemorhous mexicanus) department; I managed to find a good looking male, but he was already married - so I took his wife along as well. Our resident female bird needs companions more than she needs a man of her own.
(and knowing 'sparrows' the male will generously devide his affections between the ladies anyway )

Since I was 'working' in my own time I did some shopping for my birds as well and got some cagecleaner, perchholders for the new cage (it has mesh instead of bars- so some adjustments are needed) and more bits and bobs.

...rambling...sorry....

quite unexpected:
I FOUND A POTENTIAL LARGE ENOUGH BATH for Sunny.
:41: :sailboat2

(it was meant to be the bottom'drawer' of a large cage, so I can always build a cage for a smaller bird around it if it is failure / or even a sleeping cage for her )

It is made of metal and is (outside measurements) 96 x 96 x 10 cm ( 37.8 x 37.8 x 3.9 american inches) and will actually still fit in my smallish bathroom, so that is a plus!
If I go any larger it will have to be on the balcony and be usable/usefull only during the warm months of summer.


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Sunny is starting to 'be brave' and socialize on her own terms. :40:

L. was sitting next to me on the couch (a late lunch & relaxing after all that shopping), Sunny wanted to join the party and started out on my knee, decided that was too close to (the moving parts of) the big human, climbed to the armrest and up.

After hiding behind my head for some time (there is no other way to describe this: she kept moving so my head was directly between her and my friend) she ran out, boinked him on the ear with her beak and scuttled backwards again.
(But not ALL the way back.)
and waited for a reaction...

I am so proud of her: no biting, but testing the waters.
Like small kids: "if a boy hits a girl on the playground it means he likes her" ... well: my girl hit a boy!

 

[LaManuka]

Tee hee, that sounds so cute, you go Sunny!

 

[GaleriaGila]

I am so happy for ya, Christa! You have such a good heart!
Yeah, your darling(s) is/are good teachers, but you're a great student.
Oh, and I'm with LaM: that picture well deserves a re-issue.

 

[Laurasea]

Too funny, how'd the freind take it?