SRSeedBurners

Not sure you can train them to lay on their back. They either will do it naturally or not. I thought it would be cool to have one that did it too but I waited until she naturally did it on her own and took advantage of the behavior. It started with hanging upside down on a rope which she did on her own. I cupped her a few times and held while she continued to play. She just naturally took to it. This was at 4-5-6 months old. Now she will roll over on her own even when I'm not playing with her or if I am she will grab my finger and try to pull my hand over her while she's play wrestles. We caught her last night laying upside down in a stainless salad bowl. She's a nut.

Greycie goes through the gamut. She has periods where she's calm and preening but she also has those times (a lot lately) where she's sitting there making all the most annoying screeches, ear piercing shrills, caw-caws etc. We really want to get our aviary setup so we can throw her out there to give us some relief. She also has a fun behavior that seems to be getting less and less these days where she will play with stuff and sit there and go through her few words/noises that she knows. Last night she found the stainless salad bowl and was in that playing peek-a-boo on top of the fridge. It was very cute. One thing she has always done is gets ROWDY! She will get into modes where she will do her pterrordactyl flights complete with the 'rawwrrrsss' and then hit the end of her play chain and continue flapping going round and round and round. She loves that toy. Also wrestling off the back of my chair is one of her favorites too. She will come over and try to get me to wrestly by grabbing hold of the material with one talon, then laying on her side and lifting the other in a sort of fist hoping she'll get a response out of me.

I'm of the opinion it's fun for the first few minutes until reality sets in. In Greycie's case she was seized upon by the neighborhood crows that continually harass the hawks around here. I'm sure they gave her a warm welcome as I saw them swirling around her as she flew to the horizon. When she found us, she was ALL TOO EAGER to get us over to the tree (it was dark) where she launched out of the tree in the dark (highly unusual) and flew around until she bumped into my wife who was calling her. She really wanted to go home. I remember she was starving and very thirsty. No way that's fun.

I don't know of any cat rescues here in DFW.

Like! What kind of wire did you end up using? Looks like 1"x2"? Gauge?

I can't recall if Gracie is a flyer? How active is she? I'm hoping high activity levels help prevent plucking. Seeing way too many accounts of these Greys picking out of the blue like this. But then I see people with Greys that have never plucked. Another thing I'm hoping is that less cage time will also help. We have a bird room and I can tell our birds actually enjoy it in there as they will get antsy if not taken back there soon enough. It's like kindergarten rompa room.

How old is Maalik? I know you said terrible ones but how close to two is he? GreycieMae (20mos) was turning bratty a few months before we brought Rio home (Memorial Day) and then she kicked it up a notch when he came home. She has since taken up another notch and like you, I am very close to banning her from my shoulder. She bites the hell out of me sometimes, seems to take joy in a high-pierced screeches directly in my ear and constantly harasses the other birds. She doesn't win again the Caique as they are master fighters but Rio is so gentle he just cowers down and will take abuse. I'm trying real hard right now to be extra patient with her as I'm hoping this will settle down over time, probably a long time. One thing I have found is that when things are routine, she's her normal little turd self. So I will then take her on a bike ride or outside riding around on my shoulder watching me do stuff which seems to adjust her a bit and we can settle down.

What a cutie. Looks like she has had a trim. Our Jardines breeder used the same type of trim. It really works well.

Could it be anything to do with losing Bogart?

My gosh what a sweet baby....

Dave - that's funny. She probably refers to you as 'those people with that weird bird'. HAAHAA... GreycieMae doesn't say much but she does seem to know when to giggle, say 'Good [boy|girl]' and her favorite usually with impeccable timing is her fart noise. The funniest is when one of us is sort of scolding her and she opens that sweet little beak and out comes a fart noise. She knows we can't resist how cute she is.

There are tons of trees in that picture, it's just zoomed way out. She flew pretty far. The straight line from house to found is about 1.5 miles. As you can imagine we searched the quadrant area where she was 'last seen' (including above the picture boundary) exhaustively - with cars, motos and finally bikes. The place she was found was only our first pass and was only on a whim because I was sure I wouldn't find her in that direction. It's so amazing she found our little bicycle trail and parked her butt in a tree next to it and just waited.

I never thought to make a map of our 'little outing'...frigging naughty naughty...

I think they really learn something when they are out and about. GreycieMae acted like a weirdo the first couple of days and we started to worry about her a bit. She did come right back around to her old self but now she will get over-anxious when I or my wife leaves the house. She will make a really sharp whistle if she knows we're headed for the door. Once out she will call to us like we call the dogs, assuming she is trying to get us to come back in. She also does this when we go to the store and one of us goes in. She will call to the one who gets out of the car (someone always stays with her in the car). So these days if one of us leaves, the other takes GreycieMae into the bathroom where she's easily distracted while the other disappears. If we both leave, they're all in the bird room unawares anyway.

This is really sad. Bogart was almost the same age as Rio. These little Jardines are such sweet gentle little souls it really hurts to lose them.

Not sure when it gets easier. The initial sting is gone but I find myself always missing our Raven. We were in Lowes yesterday and they had the little plants that my wife bought the day Raven passed and planted over her. I don't know how she found a plant that so much reminds me of a bird. The leaves are scalloped just like a Jardines and it has little orange blossoms on top - just like a Jardines. Sometimes I feel her little spirit is in that plant. I have her little plant and we have another little Jardines that acts so much like she did. I guess that's how we're dealing with it. We still miss her and both of us get caught with a tear every now and then... In one month it will be 1 year.

I typically don't log on to GF on the weekends but the case of Brutus missing has been bothering me some. I have to be careful with the FB groups too because lots of missing birds there along with their pictures. These poor guys get out and I'm sure it's amazing fun at first until reality sets in and they get scared and hungry and have no idea what to do. It's sad. So relieved this turned out the way I have been hoping. You now belong to a small and exclusive club that you don't really want to belong to: you got your birdy on the lamb back. If anything it does really help cement how special these babies are to you. I was just kissing on Greycie a couple of days ago telling my wife I still can't believe how lucky we were to get this special girl back. She's such a gift.

Sorry to hear. I have also been begging to have the toilet lids down but am getting little response until I guess we lose one that way.

He's in the cage. He looks like he's part of the toy hanging in the middle - look at the very top of the hanging block toy and he's the top block. Greycie and Toby the Caiquey-Jiu-Jitsu master can be out at the same time. Rio has to stay locked up when they are out because he starts fights he can't finish. When he's out Greycie has to be locked up.

Wife asked me to keep tabs on the fids while she is gone for a while. This is what I see: All I see is one Caique a Jardines and a Itty-Bitty-Bat. And I don't expect to have blinds left when I get home

I think extreme persistence is the key. When Greycie got out I had it in my head I would search for 30 days straight. I had plans to take time off from work to keep searching. Going into the second day I was getting depressed but knew I would have to fight through it. We put flyers up on all street corners in our area. I think those were pretty useless. My next step had we not found her was placing leaflets on every door for at least a 1.5 mile radius around our house. Also, when I said Greycie was '3 miles away' - that was from the spot where I suspect I saw her drop down on the horizon. She was being harassed by crows. She went down north-northwest of our house and I found her south-southwest. Her actual distance from our house was 1.5 miles. I want to say she was looking for home and found a familiar trail I used to cycle her on and parked herself there to wait. It's way to bizarre for her to have just randomly picked a tree right next to a familiar trail so I'm pretty sure she knew what she was doing. Record some household noises, like your other birds to play outside. I believe anything that is familiar to him will draw him in. I also think you are correct in believing he will stick to the trees in your area if he has to cross wide open areas to get to something else. I don't know what type of playback device you're using but I would stick it in a bike trailer and pull it along and LISTEN. Making sure you have gaps in the noise so you can hear him call when he does. When we found Greycie there was NO DOUBT she wanted to come home and wanted us to find her. I'm sure your Brutus is looking for you.

I hate to hear this as I have gone through the same thing. Be sure to search at dawn and dusk. If you can record your other birds on a device and play it back while out searching that will help get his attention. Also it's best to use a bicycle as you can see and hear things a lot better. I found a car and my moto were useless as they were too loud and I was limited to what I could see. We found Greycie because she called to us in the dark and we HEARD her first. We would have never seen her. Don't assume you know where he is by the direction you saw him fly or may think he flew. We found Greycie 3 miles, in a completely opposite direction, from where I last saw her descend. She actually flew to a trail that she was familiar with and parked herself in a tree waiting for me. I so hope you find Brutus because this really sucks.

No violence and posturing to see here...Amazons are sweet and cuddly

Talon - still showing as private.

We cover to accomodate sleep time. Otherwise they would be up with the slightest light.