A little while ago, I made an order at Things 4 Wings. It arrived today! I ordered one full size toy, some foot toys as well as some foot toy making supplies.
The "Pretty Noisy" - which was much bigger than I thought it would be.
The foot toys - a few "Wiener Wraps" and a "Hall Pass"
Along with these beads, I also ordered a spool of leather rope but forgot to take a picture of it..
The order took a little while longer to get to me since it came with some gifts! This time, Maya who I've known for a few years through a few different forums got some gifts for my flock.
This one is for Piper, the big "Autumn Maya". I wanted to take a picture of Piper next to it, but given it was taller and wider than him, he was a bit uncooperative.
She also got, for the "Poi flock" this "Fall Shenanigans" - it's quite beautiful I find.
I tried having Shade model next to the toy but she would have none of it. Joey kept hovering so we put him close and when it came time to show off..well he didn't really.
Finally, after a few minutes of just staring at the toy, he approached it and starting chewing at the balsa.
Yup, I'm doing basic flight recall training with Léa, but only inside.
This all started a week ago. Léa was perched on her Wingdow and I was sitting on the bed. I saw my small jar of almonds and I thought it would be fun to see if Léa would fly down from the Wingdow to the bed for the almond. I showed her the almond and she was immediately very interested in it so I thought, why not..I held my hand open flat, with the almond in it just slightly above her towel on the bed and called to her. She flew downwards to get it!
Ever since, I've been trying it once or twice per evening as she seemed much more interested in the whole thing at the time.
On the second night, instead of having her fly to the bed, I wanted her to fly to my hand. So I held it a bit higher, so it would make sense landing on it versus landing on the bed and she did good! But again, the impressing thing is that she flew downwards, which is a good thing to teach in case of an accidental escape as captive parrots rarely know how to do that.
On the third day, after having been released from the Boy, she flew to me from the Wingdow as I entered the bedroom. Which means she flew the whole length of the bedroom (which is really longer than it is large) on her own, for no rewards and landed on my arm. On that evening, I went back to the flying downward exercise but this time an almond wouldn't tempt her. However, a nice string of beads did and she flew right down for them!
On the fourth day, I decided to have her fly to me across the room, but this time on cue (when she did this the previous day, she did it all on her own). I took an almond out of the jar, showed it to her and then called her and she flew to me right away.
On the fift day, I had taken her out of the bedroom and into the living room. I had her stand on a few different play stands and twice, when I saw that she wanted to get off the play stands I took the opportunity to extend my arm and call her to fly to me, which she did.
You can see on both pictures that she is lifting her feet as well as bending down a little, thing she almost always does before taking flight.
On that evening, I also took a short video of the flying down exercise. The quality is a bit poor, next time I'll try to have a bit more ambient light. Again, this was not an exercise on distance flight but to have her fly down to me and to work on cue flying (when I call).
I kept doing more of the same over the week-end.
Today I wanted to work on distance with her once more, as well as having her fly to me on call but not necessarily with a food reward. Since she seemed to want to fly a lot when I got her out earlier this afternoon, I figured I would capitalize on that. I positioned myself across the room with her on the Wingdow and called her to me. The first flight she got rewarded with the almond which she ate half of and then let drop. I had her fly to me on cue a few more times (always returning to the Wingdow between trials) and would only reward her with praise. The challenge on landing on my arm combined with the fun of flight actually seemed to be all it took for her to be happy. She actually flew for a half hour with very brief breaks to catch her breath before taking off again.
While I don't think I'll ever be comfortable having her free fly outside, it's quite the nice thing to practice inside!
Ever since Léa came home, the pictures I've taken of her have always been aided with a flash, to make the light a bit more uniform. Earlier this morning, when I brought her out in the living room, it was nice and bright so I figured I'd take some pictures without the flash.
I like how on this particular picture, you can see the silver starting to come through the feathers on her head - I had noticed the other day that she looked a bit more grey, to which my SO answered that she was getting old..the look on Léa's face was priceless, although it probably had nothing to do with the comment, it was still funny.
I'll be honest, I enjoyed week #2 more than week #1. She had got more comfortable around us and in her new environment, was eating more regularly and maintaining her weight (which alleviated a lot of stress on me) and was demanding more cuddle time whilst still enjoying entertaining herself most of the time. She's also pretty much stopped calling for us when we put her back in her cage.
The results of the tests done at the vet came back and I have a very healthy baby Cape.
While I'm still not going to introduce her to the other birds quite yet, I have started (once yesterday and once this morning) to bring her out for little excursions into the living room to get her used to that room. And I think it's a good thing that she gets comfortable before the others come out here with her as she was a bit puzzled by all the new playgyms. She seems to favour, at this point, the Java tree and seeing her trying to get around it is rather funny.
Here are some pictures from her first excursion into the living room. She seemed a bit confused by the atom but still walked around it and she seemed to enjoy that big toy - but how could she resist all that wood?
This morning, my sleep got interrupted by an unusual alarm.
It wasn't the radio.
It wasn't even Léa who's quarantine cage is currently in our bedroom.
Nope, it was Pixel in the birdroom in a covered cage going "Peek-a-boo" repetitively. I didn't really hear any of the other birds, just her, saying one Peek-a-boo after another. While the walls between the apartments are very sound proof, it seems the walls within the apartment aren't.
Eventually, the amount of talking she would do diminished and until she wouldn't say any human words at all.
It was ok, I didn't get my birds so they would talk, it never was a requirement.
However, something happened this morning that makes me believe that like Joey (who had also stopped saying his "Hey Joey!" for a while) that it might come back.
The birds are in their cages right now and in the last 20 minutes, I've heard three very distinct "Bisou!" (Kiss in French) from Shade. Each time I answered back to her with the same word. Of all things she used to say, it was my favorite, as she puts a lot of emphasis on it and it's adorable. I've been repeating it to her a lot lately, requesting beak kisses from her so maybe that is why she started again, who knows.
I'll add another one of Shade, just because it shows a blood feather growing in her stretched wing and it's this type of situation that can make her a little cranky.
In some regards, it's hard to believe it's already been 7 days....
The whole experience has been very pleasant in the last 2-3 days. Not that it wasn't at first, but it was much more stressful on me.
But in the last few days, we've got into a rhythm and I think we've got to understand each other better.
Her weight has been much more stable, which has helped me relax. I actually was weighing her 4-5 times a day to see a pattern happening. She's been VERY consistent since Thursday so it makes me happy.
I've also got a bit better at reading her and she's obviously got more comfortable around us.
The best part is that her calling for us has diminished quite a bit - she might do a few calls back right after we put her in her cage, but after that, she's very VERY quiet. I sometimes go take a peek in the bedroom and I've been catching her either eating or her face buried in her toys.
She's adorable and I'm quickly becoming smitten with her, specially when she makes her little cooing noises!
The next big step will be introducing her to the others, but that isn't for now.
Taking an opportunity to break out of the onslaught of Léa pictures that has been going on here.
Pixel really seemed to enjoy the "Canadian Pop" toy from Crystal's Bird Toys.
She has what I call the "crazy Red-bellied look" on this one - I have a few pictures of Joey with the exact same look.
