Léa, you are 7 months old today!

What can I say?

Your activity level hasn't gone down, it continued to go up. In fact, over these last few days you've found a new level of energy that we hadn't seen up until now! You certainly have found your comfort zone and we've seen you fly even more than before, you've become even chattier...there is no denying that you are full of life!





Yet, you still look like you smile all the time and you seem genuinely happy!



These pictures also show another important change you went through. While it was obvious that you had started to molt when you turned 6 months old, I never would have dreamed that you would have lost so much of your cap within those 30 days! There is but tiny fringe left, although you can now see some very nice grey feathers tinted of red that have taken their place. You also managed to give me a little anxiety, wondering if you were, after all, a boy. However, a few wispy coral feathers have started to show up at the very front of your forehead as well as two nice coral pin feathers have started to grow! I do wonder if more of these pin feathers will show up as quickly as you lost your orange baby feathers but I don't think the change will be quite as drastic.

Talking about colour, your ankles have definitively started to sport some coral, although you don't really let me take pictures of it. The most obvious change happens to be on the inside of your right leg and the feathers are starting to show on their own (aka, without my "help" of moving the ones above them a little).





Over this past month, you have developed a new fondness for the atom, but over these last five days, you have also discovered the "cube", which hangs more of less above me when I'm at the computer. You go on it later in the evening when you are starting to wind down - you preen on it and then you generally perch on one leg and start grinding your beak. However, the moment I start to think that you are ready for bed and get up to take you to your cage, you suddenly wake up and get active and chat away - I'll admit that I've found the chatting rather cute and it might on a few occasions bought you an extra five minutes (but this really only brings you to the time I had first thought of putting you back in..)







Finally, Léa, it's hard to believe that you are only 5 months away from turning 1 year old. Time does go by fast..

From 7 to 8 - Nemo has arrived!

My parents just dropped off their Senegal Nemo (Shade's brother) for a stay that will be a little less than 3 weeks.

This will be interesting as he's not a fan of other birds (he's been known to try and go after Cockatoos much bigger than him). He'll have his own time out in the evening, maybe in conjunction with Léa following the same method we do in the morning (someone with him while the other will be with Léa). Well this is while we'll be at work. As of December 23 I'll be on vacation for a few days and that will facilitate proceedings allowing every bird to have a considerable amount of time out of cage.

For Nemo, I have two cages set up - one in the birdroom mostly to be used for sleep (so I can close the door and not be worried about cat curiosity) and he has a bigger cage set up in our bedroom for during the day (I'll close the door to the birdroom and to our bedroom and allow the cat to have the living room all to herself during that time).

It'll be a juggling act but as in the past when this has happened, we always managed to find a routine that worked and I'm sure we'll be able to find something once again.

Secret Santa Goodies!

This year like last year, I've participated in the Secret Santa gift exchange on Avian Avenue. I got selected to be the Secret Santa to a person with four quite-keen-on-toys Lovebirds (that's a change of pace from my not-so-keen-on-toys Piper) and she seemed quite happy with her gift, which arrived sometime last week.

Yesterday, I received mine..err..the birds' gift.

My Secret Santa ordered items from Blu Bird Toys, a store I hadn't purchased on my own yet as I do try to limit what I get from the States if I can get it in Canada, due to shipping another cost involved.

It was a really nice package, nicely wrapped.


The box


The individual gifts wrapped

One of the gifts, the longer/narrower one, seemed quite obvious to me - it had to be a Sassy Ladle. Whereas the smaller one came totally as a surprise.

The content of the smaller one? 1 lb of wood for my little beavers!



The long and narrow one was indeed a Sassy Ladle - I had a hard time taking a picture that would show all of it, but I think this was pretty good. It's also quite nice and shiny!



Jan, the owner of Blu Bird Toys, also included a card with some magnets as well as a few more little goodies.





Unfortunately, the package did not come with any clues as to who the Secret Santa is so I need to go wait for more clues to be given on Avian Avenue!

Léa vocalizations

She normally clams up when I enter the room, specially with some form of camera.

However, I managed to catch her going through some of her vocalization practice earlier today. Unfortunately, she had "actual human words" practice earlier on or just decided to not do so on camera.

The life of a bird toy

It's not easy being a bird toy, at least in this household.
You often end up being reduced to nothing rather quickly.

Recently, Joey got a T4W toy to destroy. After about a week, this is what it looked like.

Before



After



Safe to say the toy was well appreciated!

Feather of hope

A little over a week ago, I had posted about my concerns that Léa might be a boy, since her head was in a big molt and grey feathers were growing in where coral should be appearing for female Capes.

For a while, and this was before I posted earlier, I had noticed two tiny wispy feathers that weren't grey above her nostrils, but I wasn't sure if they were new feathers or feathers that just hadn't molted out by that point.

I was keeping a watchful eye on her forehead, similar to the scrutiny I put her legs through while waiting for the first coral feather to appear there. She wasn't a fan, just like she wasn't a fan of the ankle examination.

The other day she wanted me to scratch her head. So I jumped on the occasion to keep an ever watchful eye on what might be hiding under the grown feathers.

And I spotted something, a new pin feather. Yesterday, while still tiny, it was clearly different in colour compared to the dark one growing right behind it, similar to the first pin feathers that I thought might have ended up being coral on her legs but weren't. Today, however, it looked different - it looked like it was heading to be the same colour as that first official coral ankle feather.

There is just one of these small, yet "fat" possible coral feathers on her head, at least that I've spotted. Although it's probably still early to tell for sure and I should probably wait for it to be a bit longer or even open, but it does look like I've got my girl after all!

My welcome home

It was a bit chaotic in the birdroom, as it always is, when I go home. It seems everyone wants to be greeted, everyone is making some sort of noise or has some type of body language going on.

I started with greeting Shade, the calmest of the bunch. Actually took her out for a quick head scratch and put her back in without a problem.

Greeted Zuri second, bobbed my head like he likes to do it and I got a bob back.

As I was moving to Piper's cage to say hi to him, Pixel started to rattle on of her Grey Feather Toys toy to make sure I understood that she was next. Still said hi to Piper, gave him a quick head scratch through the cage bars.

Move onto Pixel, who was quite happy to finally have her moment of attention. Tried to get her to say Peek-a-boo, as she normally does so when we do our greeting, but not tonight.

Go say hi to Joey, and notice that his water is nearly red - it seems one of his toys got a bath today..at this time Léa decides to say, for the first time, a very clear "Allo" (hello in French). While I'm impressed, I just turn to say hi back to her and proceed to sing a song to Joey, his and mine's little ritual (and he was waiting for it!).

Next is Petey - say hi to him, he doesn't seem to really care (as I'm not the Boy) so I move to say hi to Léa again and she goes crazy and beeps a lot.

Get out of the room to prepare for them coming out and they all start "talking" at the same time.

Yet, once out, they are all very very quiet!

All the same

I really *really* wanted a profile shot. She made it otherwise...

Reaching for the Stars

More delectable Avian Organics food!

This wasn't part of my Sidewalk Sale order.

At first I had intended to wait for that sale to get some more Avian Organics food but two reasons pushed me to order ahead.

First, well I was running out fast of the Mayan Gourmet Mash, a staple around here as it is possibly the favorite AO mash, one that is good enough for the birds to lick their bowls clean. In fact, by the time I got my order yesterday, I had been out of the mash for a few days, having cooked what I had left the day after I ordered. I didn't want to wait to be stuck in the middle of a massive pile of orders and have to wait too long to get the my order.

Mind you, the birds did not have to wait too long to get their Mayan Gourmet Mash fix - the shipping with this order has got to be the fastest I've ever seen from BC to Ontario; it was shipped on the 30th and arrived yesterday (the 5th)! Less than a week and there was a week-end in between somewhere!

Here is what I ordered -


Pineapple Pudding, Mayan Gourmet Mash x2


Hemp Berry Pudding x 2, Cazuela

I had mentioned above that there were two reasons as to why I ordered right away - well reason #2 has got to do with the fact that I jumped on another sale Doris was having, this time on Facebook. The first 5 customers to order at the time were each going to get a package of one of her new products, Parrot Pals.


Parrot Pals

Doris also was very generous and included one of the above Hemp Berry Puddings for free.

Hopefully this order will help tide their big appetites for a little while longer!

Quotes

"What have we fed you today?!"

~The Boy to Léa, who's been quite highly active all day, rarely stopping to catch a breath.

However, she was also very "chatty", i.e. was making all kinds of cute little noises, and it's hard for him to be annoyed with her when she's that cute.

Piper's Skywalk

He had it in his cage for a little bit and just recently started going on it.

What makes me happiest?

That toy in the forefront, the thin balsa toy, he started chewing on that once he started going on the Skywalk! It's getting him to play with toys!

He also seems to like pacing back and forth on it. I'm happy he's enjoying his new perch!

On the topic of the Sidewalk Sale

I got my first SWS order!

I think this is the first time I ever received something ordered during the SWS in such a timely fashion. That there was no shipping involved, that I was one of the first to get her order in, that it was a rather small order as well as the fact that (some of) the toys were probably created ahead of time helped.

I was told late yesterday that my order with Crystal's Bird Toys was ready. However, since Crystal was mostly locked in making more toys resulted in either me picking up the toys today or waiting until sometime next week-end to have them delivered.

Obviously I picked the first option, which meant I got to meet Crystal's flock (and got to hold Merlin the African Grey!) as well as see her workshop - which was very organized!

The toys!

A Snow Play for Léa


Snowball for the little Pois


Freebies - for being one of the first five customer to have ordered during the SWS


Quite happy with everything! Thanks Crystal!

Sales all around!

I think it's pretty obvious that while I try to look for quality items, I also like hunting for sales. With 7 birds to buy for, it just makes sense to make bigger purchases if there is some type of deal going on (although the savings will undoubtedly just go towards more parrot-related purchases..)

As it turns out, this week-end is full of savings to be found in a lot of parrot-related online stores!

I'll start with a sale that is more than over the week-end - a week ago or so, I placed an order with "Les Jouets Rosie" since Jacqueline is currently having a sale of 30% off everything in the store when you buy for $100 and more of merchandise. My order actually came in earlier this week.


AviClean solution, 4 1lb bags of TOPs, 5 Rosie double perches, 1 cajeput perch


Close-up on the Rosie double perch and cajeput perch

The smaller Pois LOVE that double perch and I'm sure they'll be happy to see a new one in their cages.

For more sales, and these are only on this week-end, hop on over to Avian Avenue. The forum is having it's bi-annual Sidewalk Sale (SWS) and many vendors that are also members are participating. Every store has it's own different sale and it's worth having a look around. However, you must be a member to order, but the forum itself is a great place to be, full of resources and nice people!

A Shade Story

**The Boy insists what is described below really happened.



Last night, the Boy was put the little ones in their cages, paving the way for Léa to come out.

He brought Petey and Joey in one go.
Then got Pixel and Shade.

As he came back to get Zuri and Piper, he tells me:

"You'll never know what Shade just did.

-What?

-Well she opened her cage door, went down and got in her cage.

-How did she open the door?

-Well it was unlocked, she stood above and pulled it open."

So basically Shade decided to do this for the first time in his presence...no one taught her that, she's one smart cookie (and strong)!

This might also explain how she's managed to get out of her cage in the past...