danmcq

I always enjoy hearing updates on Isaac. Believe me, I know how life can become overwhelming at times. Thanks for taking the time to do this.

Emma is doing the mating dance in this video.

Hi Jan!!! It's wonderful to see you on here again. I have missed your posts and stories of Tobie. I'll bet you have many to share.

Welcome John and flock. I look forward to hearing and seeing more as you have time.

Sorry to hear of this, but the news the vet gave is VERY GOOD. It is difficult to get those meds down, but just like with a child, they are for their own good health, like it or not. You are a GreYt parront!

I am so happy for you! Your patience and love for Gilbert seems to be rapidly paying off as he now desires to interact with you on such a closure and intimate level. I'll bet you were on cloud 9 during this latest episode.

Wow! You are off to a great start with Charlie! :-) His mannerisms in interacting with you and the family display a very well brought up grey in homes that obviously spent time interacting with him and guiding him on proper human/parrot relationships. Just the items you have listed above, show he has effectively already started teaching you how to interact with him based on the human/parrot dynamics he has learned over the years. Very impressive! You are going to be in for many more surprises as his entire personality and intellectual abilities are displayed to you over the coming months. Thanks for sharing this!

Dee, if you watch Gilbert while he is outside or perhaps by a window. I'll bet that you will observe eye pinning as he zooms in and out to focus on objects or birds flying by. Other than a reason though, most times they do not pin. Dayo does not pin his eye's if he decides he wants to blindside me with a bite. Thank god those have lessened in frequency.

My thoughts in regards falling while sleeping are the same as Chezron's. A birds talons lock when perched, thus we do not see birds falling out of tree's at night when they sleep. It could be something neurological or an underlying illness. When birds get startled while sleeping, they awake immediately. They are not slow in waking up, it is almost instantaneous. With night terrors, they go flapping all around their cage. They do not fall like a rock to the bottom of their cage and then wake up and flap around. Dayo and Jake have been frightened in the middle of the night while sleeping from an earthquake. They were instantly flapping all around the cage and did not fall to the bottom. This would be a normal display of a night fright or life threatening reason to awake and flee. Falling to the bottom of the cage is not normal, at least not without flapping all the way down if they have clipped wings for example. This is something that should certainly warrant an avian vet visit to ruling out underlying causes. Very touching moments you shared after this fall. Thanks for sharing it.

Birds' pupils change in size for all the same reasons as humans' do. However, they also enjoy conscious control over the iris and other eye muscles. According to avian veterinarian Dr. Susan Orosz, the signals sent from the brain to a birds' eyes travel from some of the same nerves as in mammals, but they take a different path that allows the bird discretion over the results. In addition, a bird's eye muscles are different from ours - they are more like the muscles in our arms and legs. As a result, birds can control how and when the muscles in their eyes move, and make their pupils small or large whenever they want or need to. This type of control is what allows a falcon traveling at over 200 mph to instantaneously change focus from a faraway object to one that is near, or vice versa. If we tried to do that we’d probably fly into something! That same control allows a parrot to use his eyes to convey that he is feeling afraid, aggressive or interested. By constricting, or "pinning," and opening, or "flashing," his pupils while he is talking, your bird is letting you know just how excited he is at that moment. With this in mind, it seems Gilbert is unemotional most the time. He probably only pins when your not looking so he does not give away his true feelings. In human terms, he has a poker face.

When you give scratches to Solomon, do you feel very small/fine pin feathers? The reason I ask, is both my birds are going through a molt and Dayo has a gazillion small facial pin feathers coming in around his face and scratches as you are describing. He also of course will turn his head as I give him scratches which positions my finger right in the eye area at times. Nothing you wrote sounds alarming or like a health issue at all in my opinion.

LOL! Now you know just how intelligent these grey sentient beings are. Their internal clock is as accurate as our mechanical/electronic clocks. When it is a specific event time, they will let you know as you described. Gracie will continue to shock and amaze you. The most unnerving thing to me, is pondering just how much more is going on in that brain than they vocalize to us? You know they have thoughts and opinions just as we do and ponder on without speaking. Sometimes the unspoken words are the most powerful, just through a look or body language. They both go hand in hand.

Dayo and Jake are both fairly inactive and not eating, when we are gone or even in a room other than the one they are in. I suspect it is because they are flock creatures and everything is done with the flock. When we are in the room with out birds, they spring to life, play eat etc. They do seem to be very "Social" by nature and prefer to have meals and fun with a flock.

Dayo hates baths. I do the same thing as Chezron.

What a great helper! nothing like a little peek hole to be able to see exactly whats in the next box you may wish to unpack! Thanks for sharing this.

Wow, Misty is very talented and with those eagle eyes, he can find down to the pixel level just what is wrong. I do see he had to chew a little paper while pondering just how to approach this delicate operation.

LOL. I love it!!!!

Looking forward to hearing answers to the questions from judy and steve.

Judy gave good advice. Has anything else changed at all other than the bottle being left on the cage? Things like diet, new toys, new items in the room cosmo's cage is in etc?

Welcome Karen and Cosmo! I read your plucking post as well and the answers you received were good advice. I hope to hear more from you as you have time.

One thing I thought I would share by copy/paste is a question that she answers very well. We always get the question about what people can do to MAKE their grey become a cuddle muffin. We all know it can not be forced or coerced. But I believe Billy Jean put it in a way I know I could have not said better... : Craige: Cosmo does what she wants By Betty Jean Craigepublished Saturday, September 29, 2012 “Cosmo wanna go up! Cosmo don’t bite, OK? Cosmo don’t poop on floor, OK? Cosmo go up! Please? Cosmo wanna be a good bird.” Cosmo is, in her words, “back in cage.” She wants out. She’ll promise anything to get me to open her cage door. I open the door, and she pops out. Cosmo is a “good bird,” from my perspective, while she perches on top of her cage. She is “good” for about two minutes. Then she climbs off the cage and heads for the telephone cord (the third one I’ve installed in the last six weeks). I grab her. She bites me, not hard but deliberately. Then she looks up and says, “That hurt? Cosmo bad bird. Go back in cage.” I’m not sure that Cosmo ever wants to be a good bird. Cosmo is an African grey parrot. And she’s not bothered a bit when I scold her, when I tell her she’s a “bad bird.” To Cosmo, being a good bird means trying to please me. It means being subordinate to me, obeying my wishes, following my rules. It means not being independent. It means not following her natural inclinations. Why should she want to be a good bird? Subordination to a human is unnatural for Cosmo, or for any animal with the wild still in her. Here’s a big difference between wild animals and domesticated animals — between birds and dogs, for instance. Parrots are still wild animals, though tamable as individuals. Dogs are domesticated animals, produced by artificial selection. Subordination to humans is natural for dogs, or rather for most dogs. If I say, “Good dog!” to Mary, an American Eskimo dog whose talent I’ve yet to discover, she wags her tail. She delights in my approval. If I say, “Bad dog!” she hides under the bed. She’s ashamed. We tend to call individuals “good” or “bad” according to how obedient they are to our rules. We say they’re “good” if they do what we ask of them, “bad” if they don’t. We expect them to try to be good. But some don’t care. Can you imagine telling a squirrel “Bad squirrel” and motivating him to get off our bird feeder? Or telling a hawk “Bad hawk” and shaming her into releasing the cute little chipmunk she was planning to take to her nestlings for dinner? Or telling a bear “Bad grizzly!” and embarrassing him into releasing you and your gun? Unless we’re shouting at the top of our lungs, we’re unlikely to influence these wild animals by a reprimand. They are doing what comes naturally to them. Why would they limit their freedom to please us humans? Why would Cosmo? I doubt that pleasing a foreign power comes naturally to anybody — other than our dearly beloved dogs. I’ve mentioned before how often Cosmo says “No” to my requests, suggestions and invitations. In fact, she’ll ask “Betty Jean wanna kiss?” and when I’m just about to put my lips to her beak, she’ll say, “No,” back away and laugh. She decides when to kiss, not I, though she sometimes chooses to grant my request for a kiss. After all, I’m her significant other, her friend, her caregiver. We’re bonded. Nonetheless, Cosmo is often a “good bird” not because I ask her, but because she wants to. And I do almost all she asks of me because I want to. Cosmo must see an advantage for herself in our togetherness. That is probably the only reason she sometimes, if rarely, obeys. Cosmo has very admirably made a fine life for herself confined in my house with my dogs and me. She has figured out how to have fun in an environment that her wild grandparents in Africa could not have imagined and would not have survived. As her human, I control her time in the cage, but I don’t control her spirit.

I thought others might enjoy reading Betty Jeans insight on her Grey Cosmo. She has a wonderful book out and is always sharing new stories and thoughts about Cosmo. http://onlineathens.com/authors/betty-jean-craige

Nice update and photos. Thanks for sharing these.

One thing on teaching that I did not explain clearly. I do not, nor should anyone else just sit and repeat words over and over thinking their grey will pick them up. They learn on the fly through consistency. When you give them an apple, just say apple or want apple? Just talk about what you are doing, what you are offering, what you and they are seeing, hearing etc. They will pick up what THEY wish to learn based upon their interest and desire to be able to describe what they are seeing, hearing or want for example. Jeff, it is amazing listening to them in word play and making up their own sentences to get the mechanics down. Sometimes it will have you rolling on the floor laughing.

Interesting Jeff! In regards right or left footed. Dayo steps up raising his right foot and perches on his right foot with left foot raised up and curled in. He eats and plays with toys using his left foot. I presume him to be left footed, since that is the foot he uses for items needing precise articulation. Dayo is 6 and I stopped counting his vocabulary at over 500 words, over a year ago. He learns new words in one day and has since he was around 3. He also uses words of 5 syllables, which is another indicator of vocal abilities in advanced stages. He is a very vocal grey and has 100's of sounds as well that include household, other outside birds, whistles, melodies and he sings as well using La la la and do dee do dee do's. Oh and sound effects for beat-boxing, which he loves to do as he dances and bobs his head. My best advice to all, is to talk and interact with your birds just like you would with a human from infancy onwards and they will come to greatly value the ability and necessity of being able to effectively communicate their opinions, wants, needs and even humor to us humans, as their flock that they rely on and love. You are in for a very exciting and interesting lifetime with Gracie.