LindaMary

Thnaks for all your kind words, folks, about my story - and it's great to hear some from others, as well! I know you're out there! I have actually experienced some of this kind of thing from horses, too - and the stories of cats who choose to cuddle up to the person who is sick or feeling blue are legion just within my family alone. I wonder if we humans simply find it more curious for a non-mammal to exhibit this sort of sensitivity? A propos of that: there's an interesting bit in an article by Sally Blanchard in Bird Talk this month (the article is called "Think Your Bird Hates You?"), where she talks about the difference in the physical vision structures of birds compared to humans. According to Sally, the fact that birds are designed to see more of the EMS than we are (including some of the ultraviolet range) means they can literally see our energy - what some people might call auras. Add that to the fact that they are flock animals, and it's not too surprising that they amaze us all with their intuitions! And I loved the OOOHH WELLLL, Jan!

Here's a little treat I experienced last night and wanted to share. My 86-year-old mother has an apartment a few blocks from me; she spends about half her time there and half at her old house in CT. Maxi has a medium-sized spare cage in Mother's apartment, and when Mother's in town I leave Maxi with her a couple of days out of a week while I'm at work. It's company for both of them (otherwise Maxi has 8+ hours all alone with a radio or TV), and I hope is also helping them observe each other enough to bond a bit. My mother would really like for Maxi to be more "pet-like" with her, but she's not as much of a bird person as my daughter and I are, and is a little hesitant, which of course makes Max shy and nippy around her. My father, by contrast, was a real bird guy, and Max took to him instantly. My father passed away on March 22 of this year, and my mother (all of us, really, but she especially) is still very much in the throes of the grieving process. Well, I had left Max with Mother yesterday, and stopped by after work to make dinner for us, visit, and then take Maxi home. As usual, Max was out on my shoulder throughout the meal, and afterwards as we sat talking. The conversation eventually turned to my dad, and my mother began to tear up, which of course got me going, too, which in turn got my mother going even more.... Now, Max has seen me do a lot of my grieving, because it tends to come over me during the "lullaby time" she and I always spend before I put her in her cage for the night. But I don't think she'd seen my mother cry before, and all of a sudden she's leaning and straining forward toward my mom, and then she's crawling down my arm and onto the table and running across the table to stand right in front of my mother, looking up at her. She just stood there quietly, about 6" away (closer than she's ever volunteered to get to my mom) looking up with her head cocked a bit, and no nervous body language at all, as if she just wanted to say "It's okay, I'm here." Well it made me laugh right through my tears, and it made my mother smile through hers, too. I reassured Maxi that everything was really okay, people just have very runny faces when they're sad, and how sweet it was of her to care, etc. She didn't seem stressed at all (hasn't with me at my moments, either) but it sure did a lot for my mother last night! What amazing creatures. I'd love to hear other peoples' stories of parrot empathy, too. Who has one?

Yikes, I was afraid of that. I'm glad to hear the fids are weathering the storm as well as they are! I hope we'll hear that you are settled back in with them soon!

Congratulations of getting your fids back home, Stephanie! I was so impressed by your post to the "Children & Parrots" thread - it sounds like you are really doing a great job of achieving a balance between fids and kids. It is wonderful that you were able to re-home Echo and Damnit with your grandmother temporarily. Reading the story of your last 4-5 years was eerie for me : I was in almost identical circumstances 13 years ago. I wish I had been as savvy then as you have been in finding a temporary home for the 11-year-old budgerigar who was my feathered companion back then (Sketch). He passed away six weeks after I brought my prematurely-born daughter home, and I have always wondered if the long hours required by her care (as well as being faced with a new entity in the house competing for my attention) might have contributed to his demise. I was crushed by his passing, no matter how much the vet tried to convince me he'd lived "a pretty good long life for a budgie". Good for you for getting everything in place for your birds, and kudos to your grandmother, too, for being a surrogate mom for so long! I'll look forward to seeing pictures of your birds! And BTW: has Ike affected you much where you live?

I'm putting you and Spike in my prayers!

Tony, I have one of the shower perches, and to start out with I just let Max sit on it (OUTSIDE the shower's water stream) while I was showering. She probably got a few droplets splashing off of me even at first, but the main idea was just to get her used to being in the shower enclosure. I figured even if she didn't really get wet, the humidity would be beneficial, and she did seem to enjoy that and still does. I also made a big deal about how much I was enjoying my shower: gurgling the water, laughing, etc. After doing this few times, I used the (removable) shower head to spray just her feet a few times. She squawked, but seemed to realize the world hadn't ended. Now I get her to step up on my fingers, and run her under the shower head a few times (I count "one..two..three...wheeee!" each time, and she knows there's a beginning and an end to it with my words.) She hunkers down, but nibbles a little at the water and tolerates her back being soaked. Then I will place her back on her perch and again use the shower head to spray her sides and under her wings - she squawks like mad still when I do this, but lifts her wings so I can really get her wet. I use tepid to cool water for all of this (fortunately I don't mind cool showers, either). Nowadays, Max gets miffed if I don't include her in my shower, and hollers like mad from the next room if she hears the water running and she's not there. BTW, I don't actually shower her every day, but I do take her in to sit on her shower perch while I'm showering most mornings. By contrast, she is still really allergic to bathing in even a shallow dish on the counter. She will, however, still try to take a secondary "bath" in her water dish after a good soaking in the shower, so I'm still working on eth shallow dish concept... Good luck and hope this helps!

That looks awesome, Dan - a heavier-duty model. I'm checking it out...

I can hardly imagine life without it. I got one at the same time that I got Max, and she actually gets excited when she sees me open it up - she knows she's coming along for a walk or a ride instead of being left at home. The roll-down canvas "windows" also let you give your bird a litle privacy if the world out there gets a little too chaotic for him/her. It really opens up the world for Max, I think - we're much more free to include her in our out-of-the-house activities because she has her own little portable safe haven anytime she needs it. I highly recommend it!

Thanks for the info, Dan!

Years ago, I had a budgie, Sketch, who would spend 6-7 hours home alone while I was at college during the day. When I got home and let him out to fly, he would often immediately land on my chest, andwhen I looked down to him, he'd grab my lower lip in his beak - hard! The first time, he almost went through it - so I totally sypmathize, haggis! :blink: :blush: :blink: Believe me, I learned fast not to look down! He never EVER bit me otherwise, soI know it was just him expressing his opinion about being left alone for so long.

Thanks, siobha9! That brings up another question which I feel sure I should already know the answer to: at what age does a Timneh normally reach sexual maturity? I have read that there is a difference in the maturation rate betewen TAGs and CAGs...

A question here: in the video that comes with the aviator harness, the trainer is shown stroking the bird a lot under the wings and on the sides, to get the bird used to being handled that way before trying to put the harness on him. Does anyone have an alternative method?

I think Kaedyn's theory sounds good on this one. They also do that wide-beak "yawn" apparently when they feel like there's a small feather or something in their ear - I think of it as equivalent to us yawning to try to equalize the pressure in our ears while changing altitude in an airplane or something. I'm betting the flute and the sax just happen to hit whatever vibration makes Baxter's ears feel funny. Maxi's "relaxation" music at night is usually flute music, and I haven't observed any head shaking, but I do notice her yawning, come to think of it. Now I'm going to be paying closer attention - wonder if she's having a similar reaction....?

{Feel-good-0002006E} Sameera! That I would have LOVED to see!

Thanks, Suzzi & Jim. I also heard the practice-murmur from her while she was learning to say the few things she says clearly now, and as you've suggested, I just talked with her and showed my excitement when she really made progress on clarity. I've just been struck by the sheer length of what she's trying on at the moment. Previously I'd hear the two syllables of "hello" or the thre of "i love you", so I could really see what was coming. Lately it sounds like she's trying to recite a whole sonnet or speak back a whole conversation. I'll keep you posted!

Great looking Wabbit, Ronda! How do your birds like him? Maxi and our albino Rex bunny Snowball actually seem to rather enjoy each other's company. Snowball likes to hang out under Max's cage when we give him out-of-his-cage running time inside, and Max seems to enjoy sneaking up on him from above, vulture style, which eventually makes him thump and run. He always returns, tho - I thinks it's really becoming a game they both enjoy. I've got a picture of them together which seems to be too big to upload, once I get it figured out I'll post it.

I am curious to hear some other people's experiences with murmuring in their greys. Maxi has a few words which she occasionally says quite clearly (Step up, I Love You, Peekaboo, Hello...) in addition to all the attendant kissy noises, water dripping, whistles, wild bird calls, squeaking garage doors, etc. Just in the last week, though, she has suddenly started a phase of doing a LOT of murmuring - long phrases and chains which sound very much like they are trying to be human speech. I mean twenty to thirty syllables at a time, with LOTS of inflections. I can't isolate words from it yet, and there's so much of it that I can't even tell yet if she is repeating anything. I'd love to hear some thoughts on this, and suggestions for helping her articulate better. Any ideas?

Thank you, Mistyparrot, for detailing your experience with Misty. It helps me to know what to anticipate in terms of the length of time needed for a clipped grey to fully fledge and begin to master flying. I have pretty much decided to go through this process now, as I do viscerally agree with you that clipping Maxi is "an affront to her birdhood". In that vein, I am also beginning to let her examine an aviator flight harness, in hopes that even when she is fully flighted, I will still be able to take her outdoors when the weather is good. The only other birds I have ever housed were fully flighted : several budgerigars, two Amsels (in Germany) and a robin (here in the U.S.). I think the best comparison in terms of the size of the bird is with the robin, who was probably about the same weight as Maxi. My experience with all of them matches yours in that the birds always developed one or two favorite spots to perch, and generally used their flying skills just to travel between those spots. My increased menagerie (cats) and more complicated household (teenage daughter, ceiling fans, etc.) will require more planning and supervision than I had to exercise with my previous flighted companions, but for the past year we seem to have been living by house rules that would be safe for a fully flighted bird anyway, so I'm encouraged to go ahead. Thanks again for your input - everyone! I'll let you know how things progress!

Hey, thanks and karma to you, Jim! I followed your phrasing thru the web to where some publications of Presbyterian missionary societies in the late 1800's refer to "the Timneh country" and "the Timneh people" in Sierra Leone. It looks like the reference actually be to one of the major ethnic groups in what is now Sierra Leone: the Temne. Thanks for helping me find an answer to a question that's been bugging me for months. The only other non-parrot "timnehs" I could ever find defined were (1) the city where (biblical) Joshua is buried, and (2) a Palestinian grain measure. This one obviously makes a heckuva lot more sense!

Who can tell me the origin of the word "Timneh", and why it is used to describe some of our parrots?

Thank you SO much for your responses, LovemyGreys and shanlung! I really feel honored to have heard from two voices with such experience. The information in the e-mail you linked to me was just what I was looking for, shanlung - and I have bookmarked the website link to Free Flight for further reading today. Among other things, your description of the appropriate age for training made me feel much better about going through this process at Maxi's current age - it actually seems like she would be about perfect. Boy am I glad I finally registered in this forum and started actively using it!

Maxi first said "Step up" at about 11 months - for a few days, it sounded like "Puppup", but soon became quite clear. What's interesting is that she really only seems to say it when she actually wants to step up: that foot is usually wagging at me at the same time. She'll sometimes say "hello", and recently uttered a very soft but very clear "I love you" a couple of times - always together with smooching kissy-noises. She's also working on several things with more than eight syllables, but I can't tell what they are yet! One of my favorite experssions of hers is "Woo!" - too cute. I was interested to hear about Spookyhurst's experience of her bird talking less than before - Max seems to pick up sounds and then drop them too.

I have a 17-month-old TAG who so far as I know has always been clipped. Only recently have I been reading that it's considered important for a baby to have the experience of flight sometime within her first couple of years, even if the plan is for her to be clipped routinely thereafter. (I have mixed feelings about the whole clipped vs. fully-flighted issue, but that's the subject of many other threads!) My specific question is: Has anyone experience in letting an "older" bird fledge this late? Any tips about what to anticipate? I believe our household is going to dictate clipping again, but I am feeling like this is certainly worth the effort. Any advice would be welcome!

A late addition to this topic - Maxi also loves the ice water bath in her water dish. She's pretty good about showers, too - she has her own perch in our shower, just out of the shower stream, so she joins me in there each morning and gets a steam bath even if she doesn't get wet. Every few days, I run her under the shower head, too, and use the mobile shower head to squirt under her wings, etc. She usually squawks a bit at that, but also raises her wings so I can really get under them - it all seems to be theatrics. What Dave007 said is true for Max, too : she is MUCH more apt to try the Bath-in-the-Water-Dish after a really good thorough shower! After reading all this I am definitely going to try a larger dish of ice water - that she can really party down in - for her next bath attempt!

I occasionally let Maxi have a little piece of chicken or fish, and she definitely LOVED the couple of times I let her gnaw on a mostly-cleaned chicken drumstick - grabbed it and went right for the soft end and the marrow. (She actually seemed to lose interest in the bones once they started to splinter, so they were easy to get away from her at that point, but I would never leave her alone with a bone anyway.) Apropos of cannibalism: I don't know how pertinent this is to parrots, but I worked on an egg farm one summer in college (free-running chickens)and I can attest that chickens at least are naturally somewhat cannibalistic.