What a difference..

..a year makes!

One year ago today I met Léa for the very first time. Although already weighing more than any of my other birds at the time (I think it was around 150g), she was still quite small..compared to what she is today at least.



I was so happy I had the opportunity to meet her at about a month of age. She already seemed quite curious and alert, more so than her siblings.



That inquisitive nature of hers is still kicking around.

163:365 - Head tilt

I always like it when the birds posed with their head tilted to the side, looking up!

Two years ago..

..Pixel joined the flock!



It was actually two years yesterday, day for day, but bad me forgot to post about it then.

Already two years, and yet I remember like yesterday when the Boy came and got me at work with her in a carrier in the backseat and we went straight to the vet. I still remember how bright orange her poop was and how I was concerned before I realized her diet at that point consisted of the brightly coloured Zupreem fruity pellet.

I remember how cautious she was those first few days, slowly daring to come out of the cage but keeping her distance and I remember the first time she felt confident enough to come to see me on her own.

Two years later and she's taken her place in the flock. She's also, second to Shade, now willing to eat just about anything (quite the progress from her initial picky ways). I also think that her feathers have improved since then and her eyes are getting a deeper shade of red than they were when she first came here.

Hopefully we'll have many more years together!

Parrot Club pictures

Last night was this month's Parrot Club meeting.
The Boy and I brought our cameras and took a few pictures of course.

These are the ones I took with my camera (I did end up using the Boy's camera for convenience at first..).


Indian Ringneck


Linnie




Barraband Parakeet who really wanted his food!


The most adorable Parrotlets!


Bronze-wing Pionus (I actually met this guy as a small unfeathered chick - and he screamed like a dinosaur!)


Dusky Pionus


Jardine's


I believe this is a Hispaniolan Amazon


Blue crown conure

These were taken either by the Boy or myself with his camera.




Darwin the Timneh


He did belching noises for a while - it was rather cute though!


More conures







Finally, Crystal was there with a few toys for sale.

162:365 - Another dose of Piper

I used a random generator to decide of the picture order last week and then again for this week.
Guess it was time for a double dose of Piper - having him close last week and start this one.

The generator nearly had the picture order reflect the order they came home in - just switched two of them around, which I found pretty neat.

Two of the girlies decided to take a bath yesterday..

Shade went for the "mostly wet all over my front" look...





...while Léa went for the "freshly dunked my head" look.

Léa @ night

She does weird things at night.
If I'm sitting at the computer, she generally wants to hang out on the table, right in front of me. Then she'll most likely do one of two things - try to place herself under the monitors (aka between the table and where the monitors start) OR she'll start playing with things, which in itself is fine, but she'll do so either laying down or hunched on her side..

Here are some pictures of her doing the latter.








"Ok, ok I'll stand up.."


Going back down..


Ready to fall asleep.

As well, when she's looking like she does in that last picture, you have to be careful because she might have started to drool..

The master of cuteness

Seriously, how can one resist that smoochable face?? ♥

More of big boy Pete

Yesterday I mentioned I was going to be posting more pictures of Petey from that night.

Here they are!















Now, we weren't sure what exactly he was doing, but he was staying put on the perch so all was good. The Boy did let out a statement which made me laugh quite a bit (the tone he used also helped) -

"He's been getting freaky with his rope perch on a daily basis."

Shade and the world outside

I finally set up a Wingdow in the orange room so that the birds can view their new outside surroundings. Shade had a brief go at it this morning.

161:365 - Awww!

I honestly couldn't thing of another title - all I think when I see this picture is "awww"!

Another "proud, gushy bird-mom" moment

This morning we decided to do things a bit differently and go out for breakfast before letting the birds out (but of course we fed them their breakfast before leaving). However, this meant that the birds were slightly more "ready" for their time out.

We decided to start with Zuri and Léa. While Zuri was showing rather impatient signs of wanting to get out of his cage, once out, he's quite calm, well at least while he's wearing that collar. Because of his calmer demeanour, he went downstairs with the Boy.

Léa, on the other hand, ended up coming out as a fury. Totally out of control - she definitively had some pent up energy to let out. She came with me in the orange room.

So why the proud moment?

Well, since she was so off the wall, I decided to let her fly it off a bit and then, when *slightly* calmer, I interacted with her, trying to match her still-crazy ways. She was hopping and making all kinds of noises so I responded in an equally up-beat way. At one point she was on my shoulder and I gave her a kiss on her beak - to which she responded "Thank you!". See, generally when I want to get a kiss from her or want to giver her one, I use either "kiss kiss" or "bisou" and then kiss her beak. I always say thank you after. This time, however, she beat me to "thank you"! The use of it in context made me quite proud!