Adele

Please have me removed. I treat my bird better than most of you, I am sure. Of course I would never hurt my bird, but to have Danmcq accuse me of that really offended me. I am surprized any of you would believe something like that.

Danmcq, do not worry. I don't think swatting a bird out of the air is that bad. I mean, yes he did get a broken wing once from that, but it was nothing that a trip to the vet couldn't fix. Atleast it is better than the black eyes he regularly gets due to being smacked for bad behavior. The point is, he doesn't ever talk back nor would he ever dare to bite me. In addition, the vet told us that physical punishment is encouraged in birds like him. By the way, thanks for assuming that we hurt our bird. Because when you duck, they love it because then they unexpectedly crash into whatever is behind you. That is so much nicer than holding you hand up and forcing them to turn around mid-air and then simply flying back to their cage.

I don't clip my CAG's wings either. He did have a problem of swooping down on people and pulling their hair. I would put him in time out whenever he did this. He wouldn't do it to me because I am his favorite. He did it to my husband a few times and to visitors. I would also have my husband not be afraid and certainly not duck. If Manzi flew at him, I told him to swat him out of the air. I definitely think that is the best method as they don't like to be swatted down as they are flying at you because then they will have to crash land. I am sure he will learn very quickly. I found out that the ignoring thing does nothing in this situation because they find it too much fun. In addition, it is very hard to get a visitor to ignore a bird flying at their head. It has been a long time since Manzi has done that. I also think avoiding the situation works very well. When visitors come over, I put him in his cage until he gets used to them (an hour) and then I let him out onto his playtop where he will then just do his own thing. He would swoop at them when he was out of his cage and a new person would walk into the house. I personally love having a flighted bird. He comes to me when I call him. He is more independent, but he loves to fly and I would hate to take that away from him.

Here is a picture of Namsto Lake in tibet. It is the highest lake in the world at around 16,000ft. It was also so clean that you can drink from it. I have never seen clearer water. <br><br>Post edited by: Adele, at: 2007/11/19 17:55

He at first didn't know what to think of the remote control car. His curiosity got the better of him and he approached it saying "hello" a few times seeing if it would respond. Within an hour of bringing it home he was climbing up on it and riding around. I did put him on it after he was already fine being around it and he liked it. Then he didn't want to get off of the car.

I finally got a video of Manzi doing some of his tricks. Now I need to catch of video of Manzi doing his color training (he picks out the right color block when I ask for a certain color, but he only knows orange, green and blue). I also plan on teaching him to ride a skate board but that is still a work in progress.

Here is Manzi playing dead. Now he does it from his perch, but I haven't had time to get a video of it. It looks like I am just putting him on his back, but he actually leans back on his own. It took a while to get him to let go of my hand once he was on his back though. Here is a video of Manzi riding his favorite car: Here are two videos of Manzi during flight training: Post edited by: Adele, at: 2007/10/25 07:18<br><br>Post edited by: Adele, at: 2007/10/25 07:19

I have posted some pictures of myself in the "what do you look like" thread. I have Manzi, a 2 year old CAG. I teach him trick training and treat him like my baby (although he doesn't like cuddles as much as I do. My husband sometimes calls me Elmira, but who could resist hugging a cute CAG?). I am an Animal Biology/Mathematical Modeller Ph.D. student at UCD. I also have other animals: Hercules, Sulcatta tortoise; Fuser, water turtle; Amador, Azteca stallion.

Here are a few more. On is on the great wall of china. Another is in the forbidden city. Another is holding a Cormorant that is used by the old man in the picture for fishing. He has about 9 of them and takes them out to the river. He doesn't clip their wings or anything. They catch fish for him and go back to the raft when they are done. <br><br>Post edited by: Adele, at: 2007/10/25 06:13

The AF Nikkor 35-80mm. 1:4-5.6D : I am not exactly sure what this means. Is it the F-stop. I also have the 18-135 AF-S Nikkor lens. It is 3.5-5.6G. I know that you said you prefer a very low F-stop (2.8), but the lens I got was the one the camera came with. Eventually I would like to buy the 70-200mm one that you have, but it is a bit pricey.

I have a nikon D80. I love the results I get with it. I also use nikkor lens. I still need to improve my skills using adobe creative suite.