SRSeedBurners

SO lucky. Lesson learned the hard way as most of us have to learn it that way.

We can only hope. She's doing it daily now. And that damn Toby the Caiquey taught it to her. Now he's doing it all the time too.

Wife planted her flowers this year and wouldn't you know it, hummers started showing up. We put up three feeders and they started doing battle over them. My grandmother used to have hordes of them at her house in Northern New Mexico where I grew up. Every year a bird would take over the nest built just outside her kitchen window and would raise some babies. We always got a thrill watching them grow and fledge. One year something happened to the mother and the babies ended up getting brought inside for me to raise. I did it at the instruction of my grandmother, but they ended up learning to fly around in her house and we eventually let them out. I have a special place for those little beauties.

I liked the siren sound too...that was cute. Wish I had a stay-at-home SE job. Looking for one though...

Never heard that before but it's the case here. GreycieMae talks, what little she does, in my wife's voice.

I've been badgering the guy who owns that video to tell me who made that noise. He finally told me it's the Caique shown in the video and he doesn't have a Grey. My problem is I have the teacher of that noise in my house and GreyciMae is a keen student. Don't be surprised if I post a picture of Toby the Caiquey with his beak stuffed with cotton balls and GreycieMae wearing industrial ear muffs.

Love it! After getting GreycieMae, my dream home has become a big open warehouse, or a basketball gymnasium, or a covered golf hitting range, or an abandoned civic center, or a...well, you get the idea.

This morning she let me wear the earplugs for 'most' of the morning. Only once she got hell-bent on getting them out. I know some people say 'well don't have a shoulder bird' but for me it's like having my best buddy with me. She goes everywhere with me and takes an interest in everything I do. This would be impossible if I had to cart her around on my arm. I did try a few stern "STOP"s everytime she did the shrill. It put a temporary end to it. I don't think ignoring it is going to work because she will do it even when she playing and not looking at me. She won't even notice she's being ignored. At least the ear plugs bring sanity back into the fold.

She started doing it because she attacked Toby one day. He was traumatized enough that he sat there and did it all day long while she dialed in the frequency and tone and basically perfected it. She does it when she's stressed, when she's playing, when she's eating....it's her new favorite 'word'. I would be fine with it if she would just let me wear ear plugs. The second she spots those she is all over me to get them out of my ears. I'm sure she thinks she's doing me a favor.

Well, she much prefers hanging with me instead of the bird room or outside in her little day cage so it's a lose-lose for both of us. Not sure if non-FB users can view this link, but here's almost the exact sound she's making at: 0:04, 0:18, 0:30 and approximately 4 more... P.s. this is not my video or my birds, I just happened to see this video and noticed it's the exact sound Greycie is making. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10201461265293352

GreycieMae picked up a nasty high-pitched shrill from Toby the Caiquey. Toby only does it once in a great while. Greycie is doing it daily, several times a day also directly into my ear a few times which causes a temporary deafness. It's bad enough that when she starts it, my temper gets going and I have to get her out of my vicinity before I want to toss her and her shrill out the window. So she either ends up in the bird room room or her outdoor cage. Lately she gets up, and in less than 5 minutes she's in her outdoor cage because she starts it immediately. I can't deal with it without ear plugs and she won't let me wear earplugs - so her only option is the bird room or the outdoor cage. Any ideas how to curb this behavior?

Hey, I saw a post over on hoomanforums.net from somebirdy named Inara:

That's crazy that you were able to figure this out. Bird whisperer type of stuff....

I know it's possible. They do it every year for three weeks straight at the Texas State Fair Birds of the World show. The finale is similar to what's seen in the video, they release almost all of their non-predatory birds for a few laps around the stadium.

GreycieMae got herself wrapped in a towel and fell to a hard tile floor one time. I could tell it made her sore because she was off for a couple of days following but she was quickly back to her old self after that.

You have a teddy bear to hang off the chimes until she loses interest? She might be skittish of the new strange object and leave it alone.

We are still spoon feeding Greycie too. Everytime we bust out the baby formula for Rio she has to get her some. I don't think they ever grow out of it if it's around.

If I were in your shoes, I'd have her spend a few test sessions at your Aunt's house, maybe even and over-night or two just to get used to the situation.

Update 9/1/2014 - Labor for my Feathered Brats Day. Step 3: complete - Bring in dirt to level the base We found a pile of dirt at a local school less than 1 mile from the house. Talked to the foreman and he said we could have as much as we want. Even offered to load it with his loader operator. Saved me a ton of effort and time as all I had to do was unload it and level it which was and ALL DAY affair - requiring a few evening pain meds as my back became strained after 10 hours of working the Texas clay. This crap is nothing but bubble gum. Aviary Job foreman, GreycieMae, and her executive staff, Toby Toby and Rio Romeo. They're hoping this aviary project gets done post haste as they're tired of spending their out of doors time as seen here: My sweet wife helping with the first load before the 100 degree temps set in: Load number 2: Once we got the 3rd load unloaded, I spent four hours shoveling and leveling. Pictures seem to lie as their is several tons of dirt here and over half the aviary required 1.5-2.5 feet of fill to get the level I was looking for. This was a TON of work. Aviary was taken down to allow for the truck to get in and unload.

Wow. Not a bad end result to end up with two Greys. I'm of the opinion they'll be more apt to get along since they are of the same species. If I had room for one more I get another Grey to keep Greycie occupied since she is such a jealous girl. Glad to hear you got your bird back after a long hiatus.

My Tigger was never aggressive and he was a wild caught. He was just a touch-me-not. But I could still grab hold of him, he would just whine, similar to the CAG growlie growl.

Our admin works on Grey time too. HAAHAAA... kidding, I couldn't resist.

I didn't chime in with mine as it is not sound activated which is what the OP is wanting. I don't even know of any field cameras that are sound activated - those are also motion activated. The only thing I can think of is a noise-activated recording device like this. Doesn't do video though.

A couple of incidents happened yesterday evening that really shed some light on the nature of these Grey birds. The first incident was barely worth mentioning but since what happened later occurred I'll add it. - GreycieMae was eating apple chunks with almond butter, one of her favorite treats. She flew from the kitchen to my chair with a chunk and was about to devour it. I looked at her and asked if I could have it. I could tell she thought about it for a moment then walked over to me, pinned her eyes, stretched her neck and put the apple chunk in my lips and released it. She's done this before but it's super sweet whenever she does it, which is not often. - Later my wife and I got into a squabble, with raised voices and high tension to go around. Greycie started caw-caw-caw'ing extremely loudly at one point when I was getting a good tongue lashing (she was sitting on my shoulder at the time). This didn't go on for long but 'mommy' was clearly upset and began brooding. Greycie's usual evening routine is to hang with daddy and ignore mommy UNLESS mommy is banging around in the kitchen. What Grey can resist bangings in the kitchen? Last night was different. After the squabble and mommy started brooding, Greycie flew over to my wife and kept trying to sit on her. My wife being super-pissed at me, and associates these birds with me, was not interested in my damn birds at the time. She had already flipped the Jardines off of her and I was about to 'bird room' them all to keep them away from her. It wasn't long and Greycie let out the sweetest 'tickle-tickle-tickle' followed by her giggle. Then she started going through her kookaburra, drunk chicken and all the silliness that she does that always gets a laugh out of everyone. She was doing all this completely focused on my wife. Occasionally she would peer around my wife's head to see if I was still where she left me. She was clearly trying to normalize things for her mommy. I would really love to know what exactly was going through her mind but I have to think she was trying to fix things. Next thing I know Greycie is being told how compassionate she is and how she has more compassion than a human (clearly another dagger thrown my way but I had my dagger deflecting cloak on at the time). It's highly unusual for Greycie to hang with mommy once I'm home. The fact that a stressful event occurred and Greycie was trying hard to normalize the situation was very telling of her emotional capabilities. She's a super sweety even though she can be a real pill at times. I just love my GreycieMae.

I love that link to the Project Perry Greys. Did he ever get around to recording an HD version of their evening chatter?