Sunday, December 1, 2013

Crazy Pixel

Ever since she joined the flock, she had a certain animosity towards Shade. Although we were pretty good about avoiding any direct altercation between the two, earlier this month she did manage to get to Shade and give her some luckily minor injuries. Her determination to get to Shade had gotten worse over the last few months and Shade wasn't exactly an angel around Pixel anymore, so in the end, after that altercation, we moved to having separate time out of cage. In the morning, they alternate coming out (the other Littles get the whole time) and in the evening, we now get them out in separate groups (Piper-Shade-Zuri and then Joey-Petey-Pixel).

Over the 3 and a bit years that Pixel has been here, her aggression, as far as I can remember, was solely directed towards Shade and she was either indifferent to the others (most of them) or tried to befriend them (Zuri). However, this morning, in what I hope was an one-off "incident", she showed that things might be different. She decided to act erratically (as in flying in a crazy fashion, reminiscent of what she would do around Shade before attempting to dive-bomb her (which we prevented)) around Petey no less. To Petey's credit, he remained very calm throughout her bit of crazy, which I interrupted before she got too close. Whereas she might have had the "upper beak" on Shade, I have no doubts that Petey would fight back viciously if she got too close.

I am truly hoping that this will not be a recurring thing and that there was something in the air today, as the other birds were also a little twitchy and not quite themselves. But there is no doubt she likes keeping us on her toes...

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