Birdnut

This is such a tragedy, and I am so sad for your family, and especially your little boy. I know everyone is devastated about this. However, I have to disagree with the blanket judgment on cops. My husband is a cop, and he is not a moron, but the gentlest, kindest person I have ever met.

That looks really nice. I love they way you caught the tiels in flight in some of those pictures .... beautiful. You'll have to let us know how the aviary works out over time. Are you planning to breed budgies?

I used to feed the Zupreem fruitblend. My vet said it was fine and not to get excited about the dyes. But I just didn't like feeding the dyed food when there were other options. So I have moved over to a combination of Harrisons, Zupreem Natural, and Roudybush for their pellets. I put out a variety of pellet types and sizes always available at several feeding stations, as I have birds of all sizes that are loose in the bird room for most of the day. I'd just rather stay away from the dyes, if I can.

Never a dull moment in Spock's kingdom! So happy to be hearing from you guys again.

Awwwww. Just want to pinch his little cheeks!

Our bird shop here in the central Texas area offers baby CAGs at around $1400.

Ha! Ha! Oh, I can so identify. My toy wrecking crew includes a cockatoo and several conures. The conures bite off any small bits, and the cockatoo methodically unties all the knots and deconstructs the toy into a pile of toy parts at the bottom of the cage. Because of the expense of buying toys, I try to salvage any toy parts I can and toss them into a basket. Then I put together new toys from this recycled toy "boneyard." I have to say the toys look pretty ratty most of the time. I was at our bird store yesterday and noted a small bird toy with play money tied all around on it. I commented that they might as well just go ahead and make the toys out of money!!

Moussa hates the spray bottle, too. He takes off if he sees me pick it up. When I spray him, he screams like he's being sprayed with acid. Hates it! Way to go, Corky! Policing the furniture. LOL!!

I don't hear talking when Moussa is composing himself for sleep at night ... just a lot of beak grinding.

What a sweet, beautiful creature. Tears for you and your loss.

I am so sorry to see this, and so sad for you.

He probably just needs a bath. Our blue crowns got kind of skunky smelling in the store before we brought them home, and a bath fixed that. Ours love to play in water.

Hi lino, I have two blue crowned conures. They are a bonded pair, so my experience with them is probably not quite typical of what you would experience with one conure. I have found them to be very active and rather noisy (a single conure would probably not be as noisy). They are very intelligent little birds and can learn something virtually in one trial, if there's something in it for them. They are very good talkers. Although they speak in a cute little cartoon voice and certainly not as clearly as a grey or amazon, they are quite understandable. Mine started talking in the bird store, before they were even weaned. They have a pretty big vocabulary and pick up new phrases quickly. They love to interact with me verbally and play little word games. They use phrases in context. For example, if I hear one of them in the bird room saying, "Wanna take a bath?", I know that somebody is taking a bath and I am going to find water all over the floor. They love to swing on things: a piece of rope, a dishtowel, anything that you hold up for them. If you swing them around, they will squeal, "Wheee! That's fun! Oh, boy!" When they are tired at night, they cuddle up to each other and say, "Night, night." When I first turn on the light in the bird room in the morning, they say, "Good morning!" They are very friendly and will follow me all over the house (mine are both flighted), riding on my head or my shoulder. They are also very comical. They have cute little faces and clownish behavior. They keep us laughing all the time. Now the drawbacks. They are very noisy. I have heard that the blue crowned conures are not as noisy as some, so maybe they would not be as noisy if you didn't have a pair. But I think, as a rule, that conures are just noisy birds. They can be rather nippy birds, and downright aggressive in certain situations. I probably see more of this than you would, as our male probably feels obliged to be more aggressive at times, due to the presence of the female. They are aggressive toward the other birds at times, but once again, I think this is largely due to the fact that they are a pair, and that gives them a degree of dominance. I doubt if you would see this aggression much with one bird. But conures can tend to be nippy, as Judy mentioned. (We also have a sun conure.) They are very confident and resilient birds. They are not as sensitive and emotional as greys. They get over things very quickly and bounce back. They are all about having fun. They take a party with them wherever they go. Anyway, that's my input on blue crowned conures.

My grey, Moussa hasn't really bitten me yet. But today I got a wicked bite from my male conure when I was defending Moussa from his attacks. For some reason, he really has it in for Moussa. Maybe Jamba recognizes that Moussa is a guy and wants to protect his king-of-the-hill status in the bird room. I am usually careful to not allow them access to each other, but slipped up today. Anyway, Moussa was very sympathetic about the bite and gave me lots of consoling nuzzles while I was in the bathroom blotting off the blood.

I have found that the sound of the dishwasher will also stimulate bathing behavior. Seems like it's any kind of roaring sound.

The queen would never let a parrot walk through her lunch. (You know, I think the queen actually would do a lot of these things.)

Did you know that blue eyes in cats is often associated with deafness?

There used to be a number of white squirrels living around the capitol building in Austin. Don't know if they're still there. I've also seen them on the University of Texas campus. I always thought it might be the result of a population of squirrels living in a limited area and possible inbreeding. They really are cool looking.

Still playing with that camera? The bluebirds are pretty. We don't have bluebirds here. Oh, No. 12 is a black capped chickadee.

Cute vid. Maybe Murphy is getting off to the drum beat that I could hear in the music. I do African drumming on the djembe. My birds don't pay that much attention to music, but some of them will really boogie to the drum.

I, for one, felt my throat catch with a sob when I read the description of the poor young man giving up his bird. I don't even want to think about how much it would hurt to have to give up my Moussa that way. You are very right that it is admirable to give a bird a new forever home when it needs one. And it sounds like Hunter now finds himself in competent hands with all intention of giving him a good home. But it doesn't sound to me like this bird needed a new home, but rather help for his beleaguered owner. There are many birds out there in abusive or neglectful circumstances who really need new homes. I have to share a personal story here involving people known to me. I trade with a lively bird shop here called Gallery of Pets. I have had only good experiences with this shop, and the staff have become friends. I was recently in the shop and found some staff and customers enjoying the antics of Baxter, a beautiful and engaging umbrella cockatoo. Baxter has been an occasional boarder there, and I was not surprised to see him. But then I learned the sad story explaining Baxter's presence. The two men who were Baxter's owners had, like many in these hard economic times, lost their home. They felt they were not able to keep Baxter in their new circumstances and had brought him into the store for rehoming. They had been in tears as they brought him in. The store will occasionally take in a bird that someone chooses to give up and then offer it for sale as a rehome. Baxter is a spectacular bird and would have easily sold and brought the store a nice profit. But the owner of the store had told the guys that there was no way in hell she was going to rehome that bird. She told them that one of two things was going to happen with Baxter: either he would remain in the shop as her bird and a resident of the store, where he is familiar with the surroundings and the staff, or the guys could come back anytime they felt they were able and reclaim Baxter. In the meantime, they visit Baxter regularly. May I add a plea that, if it is deemed necessary to clip Hunter's wings, please allow him plenty of time to recover from the trauma of rehoming before adding yet another change to his life.

I like the name Simon, too. It's different. (My son's name is Simon, and he always enjoyed being the only Simon in his class.) Whatever you name him, it sounds like you two have already fallen for each other.

Good story. I think the key here is that the words were said in an upbeat and excited manner. My birds are much more prone to pick up excited phrases, like "Oh Boy!" and "That's fun!"

Not every grey talks, but the vast majority of them do. Sixteen months is way too soon to give up on your grey. Our grey is 12 months and he is just beginning to "practice" talking, but not saying anything very clearly yet. I don't know any special way to teach parrots to talk. All I know is just talk to him and around him. Include him in your conversation, and talk to him about what you're doing. My experience with our other talking parrots is that they will learn to say what they want to. I can repeat something over and over, and they never pick it up. And then I can say something else just a couple of times, and they immediately repeat it. I have noticed that they are particularly prone to pick up phrases associated with some fun interaction with me.

Our Moussa loves chicken. The first time we gave him a chicken leg, we were shocked at the carnage that ensued. It was like Jurassic Park. Nothing left but a pile of splinters.