Strange behavior and a eureka moment

[Kaedyn]

I woke up fairly suddenly at around 5:30AM Friday morning, wide awake and hearing a bunch of crashing sounds coming from the bird room. I made my way through the dark to their room and cracked the door just enough to see Rigel (my grey) fall from the top of his cage to the bottom, crashing into everything on his way down. He then promptly climbed back up, circled the top of his cage, hanging upside down from the bars and again fell to the bottom of the cage.

 

At first I was concerned that it was a health issue causing him to fall, but in actuality it appeared that he was purposely letting go and falling. I turned on the light and he continued to climb around the cage in a very frantic manor as if I wasn't there. I was hoping to see him fall again to prove that he was doing it on purpose, but he never did it again. I was fairly certain that he was doing it on purpose, since he had no problems navigating the cage while upside down or between one hanging object to the next.

 

I was a bit concerned with his behavior, especially since he managed to scrape up the area above his beak. Also, he typically sleeps through the night and wakes up with the dawn. All I could really do at this point was put some aloe on the injury and wait to see if it happened again.

 

------ My eureka moment -----

 

So, I was watching the news last night and caught just a few words before they broke for commercials. A few minutes before 4:37AM central time Friday morning, a magnitude 5.2 quake hit about 128 miles East of St. Louis. The shocks were felt as far as Atlanta, GA (where I am).

 

As soon as I heard that, it all made sense and I felt a lot better. The last quake that hit around the Atlanta area, a few years back was also in the early morning. I remember waking up instantly and being wide awake then too.

 

What I didn't mention is that when I woke up this time, my bed was shaking ever so slightly. At the time, I just thought it was a train. We have tracks near the house and at times it will shake the ground ever so slightly.

 

Anyway, that's my story and at least now I know. Considering that trains come through all the time, feel a lot like the quake aftershocks, and that Rigel completely ignores those, it's interesting that he knew the quake was something more. I wonder if it's related to his hearing or some other sense? Maybe he was able to hear the low frequency sounds produced by the quake.

 

-Jim

[judygram]

Jim this link will provide some more information as to what occured Friday morning:S

 

http://www.greyforums.net/forums/other-birds/73642-help-me-figure-this-out-scary.html#73780

[danmcq]

Yep, many of our Grey owners awoke to thrashing Parrots of every type. I'll it had you shook up too, from the description you gave of how and what you awoke to. :-)