neoow

Sully is a right chatterbox! Amazing! Alfie goes camera shy whenever I get my phone out. I have to secretly record him if I want to hear him chattering away to himself!

Alfie's wings were clipped twice when he was very young. The store I got him from recommended keeping his wings lightly clipped. After the second time, I decided it would never happen again. He was only lightly clipped both times, but I saw no benefit to it and it was so stressful for him that it just wasn't worth it. He's quite a strong flyer so the wing clip had no effect on him once he got used to it. I'm always super careful with doors and windows (and cats!) when he's out of his cage and he doesn't come out when I'm cooking as he can be a bit unpredictable about where he chooses to land... and I don't want him to land in a pot of boiling water! The thing I realised was that, other than being super stressful for him, if he got out, he'd be able to fly away anyway- wings clipped or not. I also thought that having a bird and expecting it not to fly was like having a dog and expecting it not to wag its tail... or bark. I just wish I'd thought about it sooner rather than listening to the person at the store. Hindsight is always wonderful, isn't it?!

Haha that's pretty cool. Alfie always perks up and listens intently when I'm watching parrot/bird videos too!

Here's another AlfieCam video from yesterday

Yeah its great! I only turn the email notifications on every so often though, as it quickly floods my inbox! But I can check in and watch the live feed at any time, so thats pretty cool.

Bonus photo "It wasn't me!" (He's been playing with the bottle for a while. He likes it so much, he's totally ignored the paper I left for him to shred!)

Here's a few photos of Alfie from today. He was chilling out on his tree and on the back of the armchair. And here's today's footage from my DLink camera. It captures a few seconds of footage when a sound triggers it (over 90db) and then emails it to me. I picked out the best ones from today and shoved them together. Nothing fancy, but just shows what noises Alfie makes during the day.

Hi all, I posted a while back because I was looking into hanging some toys from the ceiling. Some members gave some great tips and advice about doing this (thank you, as always!) but it was going to be tricky because I have artex patterned ceilings and would have needed to find beams to screw into. I visited my sisters house yesterday and she has a smallish disco ball in her kitchen. She hung it from the wall using a hanging basket wall bracket. I thought this would be a great idea to hang toys from for Alfie- giving him extra places to play and hang out on when he's out of his cage. I want to get a plain one, without any decorative bits and pieces that Alfie could get his toes or beak stuck on. Something like this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B003D8G4UQ/ref=s9_simh_gw_p86_d0_i2?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_r=1N3KBJWS9PFAC8FKREKK&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=455333147&pf_rd_i=468294 or http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B003BQYA4W/ref=s9_simh_gw_p86_d0_i5?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_r=1N3KBJWS9PFAC8FKREKK&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=455333147&pf_rd_i=468294 Does anyone see any issues with this that I might not have thought of?

Ah I'm not sure if it was me doing something right or him just being tolerant of change. He's pretty good and takes most of it in his stride. He likes to take some time to look at all his toys from a distance before the curiosity gets too much and he starts playing with them. I make a big deal of opening the box nearby and showing him each toy as its unpacked. I tell him how much fun the new toy will be and what it's got on it. If he reacts negatively then it doesn't go in the cage straight away. But generally he likes to have a look whilst I'm unpacking and sometimes will come over to poke at it before it even gets put in his cage. I think I'm super lucky that he adjust pretty quickly to things like that.

Haha I love the idea of human toys! But I can appreciate how tricky it could be to entertain a parrot 24/7! Alfie loves his toys. Especially ones which he can pull apart or throw around. He gets really into his toys and flings them around. The more noise the better. He also loves hanging on them. When he's feeling a little sleepy he grabs a toy, gets it to swing back and fourth then sticks his neck under it so it scratches/strokes him as it goes past. It's really cute to watch.

Every so often I decide to cycle Alfie's toys round to give him some variety. He's very good and not as change adverse as some parrots, so he's used to this process. When I feel that his current toys are getting a little stale/boring for him, I splash out and spoil him rotten with some new toys. I always let him watch me take everything out and show him what I'm putting in and where I'm putting it. If there's anything he doesn't like the look of before it goes in the cage, then it doesn't go in. I leave it out but in the room so he can look at it from a distance. It then gradually gets moved closer to the cage, then hung on the side of the cage and then finally, when he's happy, it goes in the cage. This kind of reaction doesn't happen often though- it's usually only for larger toys or toys made form materials he hasn't seen before. In fact I can't remember the last time I had to do this. I'm lucky that he's quite tolerant of new toys. New toy time came around recently and I spend a couple of hours browsing my favourite parrot website: Northern Parrots http://www.northernparrots.com I found loads of great toys (and also got some that were on sale) so I picked a few out (and put some on my list for another time) and Alfie has had a great time with them. Alfie now has a new Activity Wall (he's had one before and had oodles of fun pulling it apart bit by bit. I promised him I'd buy him another. http://www.northernparrots.com/activity-wall-for-parrots-prod346306/ He also has a coconut filled with lots of paper and things to chew on: http://www.northernparrots.com/assorted-brands-coco-swing-foraging-bowl-parrot-toy-prod385167 I have been hiding dried fruit, palm nuts and other assorted treats in there for him. He LOVES climbing in it and having a good rummage round. He has a bucket of toys which he likes to throw all over his cage: http://www.northernparrots.com/bucket-with-bells-hanging-foraging-toy-for-parrots-prod35913 And finally... probably the least popular one (at the moment): http://www.northernparrots.com/assorted-brands-caribbean-foraging-pouch-chewable-parrot-toy-prod37061 He's had a bit of a go at this one, but it's probably his least favourite of the new toys at the moment. I think the others are much more entertaining for him! Has anyone else been spoiling their parrots recently? What did you/they get?

Poor Sully, glad he's doing better now though. Such a good boy for taking his meds too!

What kind of stand is that? It looks awesome. He looks like he's having a great time!

Blimey. I'm so glad she managed to come back ok. I've read so many horror stories about clipped birds flying away that when I first started reading I thought this was another one! You both must have been very shocked from the ordeal! I don't clip Alfie's wings. He's a very strong flyer. He had them clipped twice when he was younger but it seemed like so much stress and after he got used to it he could fly just was well anyway. The windows and doors stay shut when he's out of his cage. I don't take any chances. If he goes outside he's in his travel cage. I've been lucky so far- no incidents to date!

So glad everything worked out ok and nobody was hurt! Thank you for sharing your story and invaluable advice.

It always shows me as logged out on the home page and won't recognise my username/password if I try to log in there. I have to go to the forums and then log in using the username and password boxes at the top right of the page. That works fine. I agree that it can be confusing. I knew I had my username/password right and took me a while to realise that I had to go to the forums first (it was more luck than judgement). On my home PC I leave myself logged in. If I go to the home page whilst logged in, it seems as if I'm logged out and won't recognise my credentials. If I go back to the forums, I show as logged in as usual. I changed my favourites to point to the forums instead of the home page... but it could be confusing for new or potentially new members.

That's amazing!

Alfie has gotten better at talking to me when I'm in the room, but he used to go silent when anyone entered the room he was in. He's a lot more talkative with me and will even make the odd noise when my housemate is in the room. I strung together my favourite clips from today. I narrowed it down from 80 something to 23... some were rubbish. I got the doorbell going twice because the postman tried to deliver a parcel haha. I got the cats meowing too. And I got some clips of nothing- presumably because Alfie made a noise then stopped by the time the recording kicked in. Some were quite repetitive or just not very clear so I cut those ones out. I've changed the settings so I shouldn't get quite so many clips tomorrow... hopefully! This is the 'uncut' version if you like- so has some gaps and isn't edited or anything. He'll jump around the cage a fair bit because it's 15 second clips from different times of day pieced together. You can play "spot the parrot" too because he's a bit difficult to see at some points! You should hopefully be able to hear him say "good day" reasonably clearly at around 20-30 seconds. Followed soon after by his firework/explosion noise. There is also a guest appearance at the end... if you get that far!!

I managed to get a video of Alfie answering the question "What noise does a duck make?" He answered twice in a row really quickly then as soon as I got my phone to try and capture it he went camera shy hehe. Took me several attempts to get this and he pauses for quite a long time before answering. He seems to have learnt it as he's regularly answering the question with quacks... and now he's even trying to ask himself the question. He starts by saying "what" pauses, then does the quack! Maybe he will want to learn the whole question, maybe he won't. Either way, we're having a blast together! [video=youtube;2PcCh7Ox-wY]

So the IP camera turned up yesterday (much quicker than expected!) and I set it up last night. I set up email notifications for the sound activation and told it to email me a 15 second clip. I got about 80 clips!!! I'm now going through them- Alfie chats a fair bit when I'm out and about! Once I've gone through them I'll string a few clips together and post it on the forums. I'm going to play with the sensitivity settings and try again tomorrow... otherwise I'll be spending the rest of the month fighting the avalanche of video clip emails!!

Thanks for the information Alex, do come back and let me know how you get on. My problem is that I would like to save the video (as I'd like to try and capture some of Alfie's musings throughout the day as well as keeping an eye on things... hence sound activated recording). So I'd have to pay for the service if I wanted to do that. However, otherwise, the dropcam kit does have good reviews.

Thanks Alex. I'd read about the dropcam ones but everything I'd read said you had to pay a monthly fee in order to save videos. If you don't, you can watch it live but not save it? I won't be able to spend much time watching it live because I'll be at work.

They're so beautiful! I bet they're a right handful!

I'm quite fortunate in that the vet I use takes Alfie in his carrier to another room. He doesn't even get him out of the cage until I'm well out of sight. Therefore I get no post-vet-trip sulking.

Totally agree with everyone else's responses here. Once you've ruled out something scary in/around the cage or a health problem, then it's probably attention seeking behaviour. Alfie has learned lots of these over the years to get a reaction from me, family members and house mates. His favourite one is a really loud squeak at the moment- it's very short, sharp and LOUD. He waits until my current housemate is next to his cage then does it, as it has maximum effect. He also does the same to me- but usually saves it for my housemate. My housemate has listened to my instructions and just ignores it as best as he can. I do too. However, it can make you jump! If he makes other noises, I make sure I respond to those and ignore the loud squeak noise. It has certainly lessened- but he'll still do it every so often. He used to make one of my previous housemates react all the time. His cage used to be at the bottom of the stairs and when one of my housemates would wander down the stairs Alfie would launch himself at the side of the cage, making said housemate jump and react. Even though it wasn't a positive reaction, Alfie did it every single time... because it was still a reaction and some form of attention from that housemate. The best way is to reward the "good" sounds and try your best to ignore the "bad"/unwanted sounds. When your parrot starts screeching/screaming, just ignore it and carry on doing what you're doing. Maybe even move further away. When your parrot makes sounds you like then talk back and praise.