MarcusCAG

I am so sorry that you're dealing with this situation right now, Paul... so many people here have offered such wonderful advice though, and hopefully tomorrow morning you will find your Murphy close by, and your happy reunion will put all of this angst and fear behind you. He's out there, and he wants to be with his flock, and I just pray that this unpleasant scenario will be wrapped up tight for you both sometime tomorrow. Thinking of you...

Oh, I just spotted this thread just now, and I have to say Egan is just a beautiful boy, and I am so happy that he will be able to help you through your loss of your dear Neo. If I may share this, it makes me think a little of our one black cat that we have now, Titanium. We had another young black cat a number of years ago whom we had to put down, it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. His name was Taitei... Titanium looks almost exactly like Taitei did, and acts very much the same to me (adoring, sweetheart black male cat) but they are still two different boys, and yet I love them both, Titanium now in my arms and in my life and ever the memory of my sweet Taitei, whom I still do miss at odd moments in spite of Titanium's presence and love. So I think Egan will be your wonderfully special Egan and yet your Neo will always glow in your heart as your special baby Neo... ooh, I'm getting a little teary now but I'm just very happy that you two have found each other, and more importantly Neo would want his mommy to be so consoled and comforted, I just know it.

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Ditto to that!!

How adorable, just wonderful!!! Thanks for sharing that... Lovely Lollie!

I can't offer anything significant to help with your first question, I'm sorry, but as regards the second: I guess the issue is, why has the mother killed them? Perhaps there was something wrong with the clutch (I read in some parrot book recently that sometimes the females can tell when something is wrong, and may choose to destroy them prior to hatching for that reason--rare, but supposedly true). Or perhaps there was something in her environment that prodded such a violent response. But if it's happened a few times, er, I don't know. Although I did read online a week or so ago at this one site, one breeder said that she had a lovely handful of newly-hatched Quakers whom she removed from the nest(box) while they were still very young to photograph them... and when they were put back with the parents, the parents killed them all!! So she said it was an expensive lesson learned and speculated that, as they were prior to a certain age, the scent of her 'humanness' on the babies must have made the parents kill them from some natural instinct. I don't know, honestly. But that's what's coming to mind now that I'm thinking of it all, and maybe it has some bearing on what happened in the past with this mother Grey? Hopefully someone else can supply a better answer, anyway...

Yes, I thought of the Wild Parrots movie (documentary) immediately, too. My boys love it! We have to be careful to skip over the hawk scenes for little Bunsen though... the bigger boys don't seem to mind them, but he gets all skittish and upset whenever one comes onscreen!

I thought that was a cute story, Ray. Marcus does that to me all the time, I'll have cleaned everybody's cages and then I get to vacuuming whatever fell on the floor during the paper-changing, and he'll decide he wants a bath in his water bowl! So water gets everywhere, and I have to wipe everything down again and change his papers again... c'est la vie. Haha, at least with a parrot!

He's perfecting it!! Is it a fun word that he hears a lot? That might be part of it, too. And if you don't mind my asking, whose voice does Brutus say these things in, or is it his 'own' voice?

Molly looks like a real sweetie.

I'm so sorry to hear your little friend is gone now, but 48 is still a mighty age, even for a Grey. It sounds as though Blue had a happy life with you, though, and that's all anyone can really ask for: to be loved. I'm sure he loved you back very, very much.

Yes, luvparrots, that is a wonderful picture!!! And Tagtastic: I just love your Lollie, I have to tell you! I see that little pic of her in your signature and my heart melts, please give her a kiss or a scritch for me!

Oh my goodness, I think I read about that story too!!! I can't think of where it was, but that ending part with the poor dog dying sounds so familiar... I want to say the writer recognized that their Grey had no other words to express the emotions and sadness it was feeling at that moment. Touching, and obviously memorable, yet so sad.

Um, yeah, I dropped the ball with this thread, sorry!! The other weekend I actually broke into the smaller palm nuts that I had ordered and frozen--Marcus just kind of looked at the larger ones I gave him back in June, Foxtails I think they were, and didn't really do anything with them. Regarding the smaller ones I gave him more recently, he kind of chewed on the flesh but once he got down to the husk, he didn't make any attempt to break into the actual nutmeat. Sooo... perhaps with the next couple that I unfreeze, he will get a little farther with them and actually get to eating them; but so far his excitement meter in terms of the palm nuts has been pretty low. (And Tybalt tried one of the smaller ones, too, and the results were unfortunately about the same.)

Yes, Biscotti is quite articulate. Such a cutie... "I'm special!"

Marcus has a penchant for trying to chew on the doorstop affixed to the door of the birdroom. Whenever he starts meandering over there on the floor, I often say, "What are you doing over there?" in a very meaningful 'Mommy' tone. But as far as I know/can recall, neither myself nor my hubby has ever asked "What are you doing over here?" in the boys' presence. So I imagine that Marcus just replaced the word there with the word here this morning, since he was savvy enough to replace the commonly-heard I with you in his "You gotta go?" last night. He's a bright boy, like so many other Greys I read about here... Honestly, my mind is still blown from Jay and Maggie's adopted Joey telling them his name "is Joey, NOT Jim." And there are so many other stories here in the forums that really can make you wonder, these parrots are an awful lot more intelligent than most people give them credit for... Hehe, thanks Shelly!

It looks like Aristotle, Buzz Lightyear, and company are off to find some trouble together! Too cute! Thanks for sharing the pics.

Thank you for all the sweet comments, everyone! I know I very much like to read everyone else's stories of their fids, so I try to keep regular updates here of Marcus too. Besides, it helps an occasionally scatter-brained mommy remember the funny and/or memorable incidents, as well! I actually should have waited a little longer to post today, since Marcus said something else just this morning... I had the boys out in the birdroom, and Marcus was on the top of his cage, chewing on a piece of paper I had given him. Tybalt suddenly alighted on the cagetop grapevine perch next to Marcus' cage, and Marcus lowered the paper still clutched in his foot to look at Tybalt, almost indignantly. Marcus said brusquely (if Greys can be said to be brusque), "What are you doing over here?" Haha, I wanted to laugh out loud, apparently Tybalt had no business being so close to Marcus like that!!

How wonderful, I love it!! Way to go, Cosmo! Prepping your own food, hehe...

Yes, please be careful with Aristotle outside. Sometimes things happen so quickly--you don't want to have to deal with anything like that! But that being said, Aristotle is just gorgeous! I'm so glad she has become such a beloved part of your family so quickly!!

I love those pictures of Gilbert at the top of this page, his feathers look so rich and he has the 'profile' of some great hero or intellect from bygone ages. He's a beautiful boy! Even when he's feisty and/or more disagreeable sometimes, he obviously has a heart of gold and I just love reading about how his life is blooming with yours--so wonderful! Please give a kiss or a scritch or something to your sweet boy from Marcus and myself!

I know Marcus will go through phases with his toys. Right now it's an "out" phase, he really doesn't pay any attention to his foot toys. He chews on the ones in his cage occasionally but it's not like he's really into them right now. Maybe Zak just needs to be in the right mood to explore his toys on his own?

^^ For lack of a better title, yes, I am sharing more of Marcus' comments today with everyone! He's been his wonderfully sweet self lately, very occasionally bratty, but always my darling boy. Recently Marcus has actually made a few jaunts into the bathroom where he stepped-up willingly to the towel rack; and then the other day when I pushed his playgym out into the den, he let me take him out of the birdroom to hang out on his gym while I worked out there on the floor. So he's opening up to new experiences around here a bit more, which is a big plus!! And over the past couple of days, Marcus has said two noteworthy (to me) things, which I would like to share here. Scenario #1: It was two evenings ago when it was just about bedtime for the boys, and I was in the birdroom getting everyone ready for bed. Marcus' wet food bowl was a little dirty, so I wanted to clean it up for the night. He was sitting on his perch that we have affixed to his door, which swings open with the door whenever the door is opened; I've taught him to sit on that as an indicator of wanting to come out of his cage or not. Well, he was sitting there, probably hoping I'd let him stay up a bit later, but I definitely wanted him and the others to go to bed! So when I opened his door to reach for his food bowl (the little food-door isn't usable at this point) Marcus suddenly lunged at me and bit my arm! It wasn't a great big deal, it didn't draw blood, but I was a little shocked and it did pinch quite a bit; it was like a twisting of the skin. So I gasped a little and said something like, "Marcus, stop that!" "Oh, it's okay," he told me easily. It did run through my head that perhaps he meant, Oh, it's okay, I didn't really hurt you, but then when I went to pull my arm out he bit me again--and then again! At the third bite, I looked at him and said, "Marcus, that hurts!" and he just kind of looked at me like he was a bit put out, almost sulking: Oh, fine. My husband, when I told him of the incident a few moments later, pointed out that we had him pretty riled up from playing and stuff earlier (it was the day he went in the other room on his playgym for the first time, and flew halfway across the house to boot). He thought maybe Marcus just was being frisky or something. I figured as much, they weren't mean bites or angry bites--but they did still hurt a bit! The silly boy. Scenario #2: Apparently I'm a creature of habit, for whenever I have to go out of the house for any great length of time I seem to always run out of the shower to dry myself in the boys' room, there telling them how I have to go, I have to leave--whatever the verb of the day is. So my husband wasn't home from work last night when I had to start running around to leave for a few hours. I popped out of the shower and was running around getting ready when I suddenly heard Marcus call to me the garbled-sounding, "You gotta go?" (It was like the fluidity of "normal" intonation was off--very Marcus!!) So I said, "Yes, Mommy has to go, but Daddy will be home soon!" That answer seemed to suffice, but of course he made his siren sound and then imitated a telephone when I closed the door of the boys' room later, to then lock up and run outside and wait for my ride. I heard Marcus make a few more other loud noises while I waited out front, too... he makes me feel so bad sometimes that I can't take him everywhere with me! Ah, well. But those two are just my new Marcus-isms to share for now. Further updates will be posted as warranted!

If they're both flighted, it should be less of an issue. Somebody can always fly away if things get too iffy between them... Although I wouldn't put one on the other's cage, personally, because of the possible aggression due to a breach of territory as well as the possibility of nipped toes! Perhaps have one of them step up and bring them close to the other--if there is the concern that they might lunge, keep one in the cage during this process. You can say all your names together and act so happy, you're just one big happy flock, and getting them in closer proximity you can see if there is any posturing or any curious welcome signs or even indifference. But even if first impressions are not the greatest, the animosity and/or jealousy may mellow over time, just make sure everyone stays safe and sound whenever they're out together.

Pancho is such a handsome fella! Thanks for keeping us all updated on his lovely progress!