Sydney and Irwin are getting along great! I was worried when I got Irwin that the two of them wouldn't like each other, especially when I didn't know if Irwin was a boy or a girl, and Irwin was younger than I wanted. But judging by his behaviour, I think Irwin is a male.

I've slowly been introducing the two of them. I've let them play together, and last week I moved Irwin's cage into the living room and put it next to Sydney's cage. Since then, they've become fast friends. As soon as I open their cage doors, Irwin goes into Sydney's cage. He feeds her and they groom each other. Sydney has also quieted down a lot since I brought Irwin out.

They've yet to stay in the same cage overnight. A few days ago, I was going to be home all day so I put Irwin in Sydney's cage in the morning and hung out in the living room to supervise. They did just fine together. Hopefully soon I'll feel comfortable enough to leave them together when I'm not there to keep an eye on them.

All of the recent spoiling has gone straight to Miss Sydney's head! She's starting to think that she's the boss around here!

It started this morning when my dad needed me to come give his motorcycle a jump start. I hadn't yet fed the birds--I hadn't even uncovered them yet. So, I uncovered them all and then started to leave without giving them their breakfast. Mind you, they all had food in their cages; Digby and Lenore had some pellets, Sydney had some seeds, and Irwin had his pellet/seed mix. Just as I was walking out the door, Sydney started chirping up a storm. She was not happy that I was leaving without giving her her mash. I assured her that I'd be back in about an hour, but she was still not happy.

All day long she's been loud and demanding. She demanded to be let out of her cage while I got breakfast ready. She wanted the TV on when it was too quiet in the house (yes, I do know that's what she wanted--she is a very easy bird to read). This evening, my mom told me that Sydney was very loud while I was gone at a Christmas party.

I got home a little after 10 PM and Sydney was carrying on because nobody gave her her bedtime seed yet. Before I realized this, though, I asked her if she was ready for bed. She did not go to her sleep perch when I asked, so that was a "no." That was when I realized that I didn't give her seed before I left. So I gave her a bit of seed, fed the fish, put Irwin to bed, got a drink, cleaned up the kitchen some, and then went back to Sydney.

She was at her food dish still, eating her seed. "Syd, are you ready for bed?" I asked her. She looked up from her food and chirped at me. I asked her again, and again she chirped at me. They were quiet little chirps, so I knew she was tired. I went ahead and covered her cage, and then she really started being loud, as if yelling at me for covering her when she didn't want to be covered. Well, excuse me, Sydney, for enforcing your normal bedtime!

Usually Sydney is ready for bed before I ask her. If any of the birds argue with me at bedtime, it's Digby. She'd stay up all night if I let her. I think Syd woke up on the wrong side of the, er, perch this morning.

Lenore flew for the first time yesterday!

When I got him almost a year ago, his wings were already clipped, and he was never fledged. His clip was very severe, and he didn't know how to land properly. As a result, his landings were crashes, and he broke all of his tail feathers.

A few months ago, he finally got all of his flight feathers in, but he still couldn't fly. He was able to glide down much, much better, but he wasn't getting any lift. Sometimes he'd get a little lift when he first took off, but no more than a couple of feet. And sometimes he'd fly like a helicopter, up a little bit, and then down in a circle. It made me really worry and I wondered if he'd ever figure it out. It made me sad when Digby would fly across the room and he'd want to follow her, but he knew he couldn't. The past couple of weeks, I've been working with him more, trying to build up his muscles, but I wasn't seeing any improvement.

But yesterday morning I brought him upstairs with me to get the birds' breakfast ready, and I sat down on the couch in the living room to wait for their mash to cool enough to give it to them. While I was sitting on the couch, Lenore was happily sitting on my hand while I gave him scritches, and then Sydney started making a fuss. All of the sudden, Lenore took off and up. I thought he'd land on the coffee table right in front of the couch or on the floor in front of the table, but he didn't. He flew all the way to Sydney's cage! It was about 15 feet, and he flew up about four or five feet. I was so happy!

Then, Sydney started showing off her toys, and when he didn't respond how she wanted him to, she got mad at him. So he flew off her cage and this time went all the way through the living room, the dining room, and the kitchen, and landed on the far end of the kitchen on the stove (which was NOT on). This second flight was at least twice as long as his first flight, and required him to go around a turn.

I'm so proud of my little boy. Now, if only his tail feathers would regrow.

Last week I won a contest put on by The Cozy Nestbox. The prize was three pounds worth of palm nuts. I'd been wanting to get some palm nuts for ages, but I'd been putting it off. So, when The Cozy Nestbox did a contest, I entered. And I won!

The palm nuts came this morning. I was so excited that I immediately washed them and got Digby and Lenore out. Digby and Lenore LOVED them! I got three different kinds--Christmas palm nuts, queen palm nuts, and fan palm nuts. I got the first fan palm nuts of the season, and I'm so glad they surprised me with them. They're just the right size for lovebirds.

At first, Digby and Lenore didn't know what to do with them, so I got them started. They tasted all of them and then played with the biggest one, a queen palm nut, for a while before deciding the fan palm nuts were amazing. They fought over and destroyed the fan palm nuts. They didn't like the Christmas palm nuts quite as well, but I think they were just distracted by the fan palm nuts.

I gave some to Sydney, but she was afraid of them. I also gave some to Irwin, but he wouldn't try them.

Not too big for me!

Lenore with a Christmas palm nuts

Sharing a fan palm nut for a moment

Give it back, Digby!

(I started writing this a few of months ago and just never posted it, so keep that in mind.)

After many months, I have finally figured out how to tell exactly what kind of toys Digby and Lenore will like. I'm still working with Sydney--she finally started playing with toys a couple weeks ago. I've compiled a short list of things found on favourite toys of Digby and Lenore.

1. It must have something natural that can be shredded. The current favourites here seem to be raffia and crinkle paper. Really, though, any kind of paper is good.

2. Wood is a big plus. This is new. Up until this past week, Lenore was the only one who wanted wood, and he only wanted balsa wood. But the other day, I discovered that Digby is a wood fiend. I had a wooden swing that came with a playground that was hanging in Lenore's cage for months because Digby was afraid to sit on it. When I put them in the same cage, I put that swing in there too. Digby loves it and will sit on it everyday, but she also likes to tear of chunks of wood.

3. Bells! The bells, bells, bells, bells. Both Digby and Lenore love bells. There is only one bell in their cage right now, and it gets dinged quite a bit and they fight over it. I should probably put at least one other bell toy in there. (Side note: I just referenced Edgar Allen Poe twice. Yeah, stuff like that makes me happy.)

4. Plastic pieces, preferably small and not too hard, but not too soft either. Lenore likes to just play with them, Digby likes to break them. Digby doesn't like plastic she can't break.

If a toy has any of these things, it will be well received by Digby and Lenore. Nearly all of the toys currently in their cage have something that can be shredded, and they prefer that above everything else.

I think I mentioned back in August that I was considering getting another lovebird in hopes of getting a friend for Sydney. It took me literally months to find a lovebird. Every lovebird ad I saw in my area and neighboring states was either for babies, pairs, or females. I found two ads that were for adult male lovebirds. I was never able to get a hold of one of the people, and the other person changed her mind (and that was a big disappointment because that bird was adorable).

Well, last week I found an ad for a lovebird that needed a home. The lady that had him did not know if it was a male or a female, and it was younger than I wanted at only six months old. I was leaning more towards not getting it, but then she sent me this picture, and my heart melted:

I still wanted to do a DNA test before committing to bringing this baby home, but the lady really wanted to find a new home before the week was out, and said she was going to sell him/her to a pet store if she didn't find a home by the weekend. By this point, I was already in love with this little bird and I wasn't going to let it slip away without at least going to see him/her. Before I even got to see him/her, I had pretty much made up my mind to get this bird.

How could I say no to this face?

So, now I'm sitting in the QT room/our unused bathroom, listening to the bird and Sydney, who is in the living room, chirp back and forth. The new bird, whose old name is Gigi and who is new name is either Irwin or Melbourne, is very sweet. He doesn't bite and he'll (I'm calling this bird a "he" until I know otherwise) happily sit on my hand once he's out of his cage. He's a little skittish because he hasn't got much attention in the past couple weeks (the lady got him for her daughter, daughter lost interest, so he was only getting attention when the lady had some free time). I really think he'll be a very sweet and loving bird in no time at all.

I know I haven't posted in weeks. Please forgive me. I've been pretty busy. I'm getting back into riding more again, the fall semester has started, and I started a new job.

During the past few days, Sydney has become somewhat of an escape artist. It began earlier this week when my mom caught her messing with the feeder doors. The feeder doors are the type that just slide up. I never use them because I didn't want Sydney to figure out that they open. Somehow she figured it out anyway.

Within a day, Sydney made her first escape. I was just in the other room and heard her chirping. I went to the living room and saw her outside of her cage. I hurriedly got her back in her cage (I was leaving for work), and put a twist tie on the door she had used for a temporary fix. I went to work.

That evening, she managed to get out again. I had only put a twist tie on one feeder door; the other feeder door had a perch on it, so I didn't think she could get out that way. So, I put zip-ties on both the feeder doors. All was good.

But then, last night, I was sitting in the living room and she got out again! She did it when I was right there and I didn't see how she did it. I looked at her cage, and found a spot where the bars weren't evenly spaced. But, I wasn't sure if that was how she got out. Seeing as it was already late in the evening, I went ahead and put her to bed, thinking she'd stay in her cage until morning when I uncovered her and took a closer look at her cage.

This morning, though, when I walked through the living room, what did I see on the table? Sydney, sitting quite proudly on the napkin holder. She chirped at me, totally pleased that she had gotten out of her cage yet again.

I put zip-ties on the bars where I think she is getting out. So far, she has stayed in her cage, and it seems like she is looking for a new way to get out.

I'm still here and all the animals are as well. I know I haven't updated in more than a week. There hasn't been much to report.

The only thing that has really happened is on last Sunday we moved my horse to a new barn. I won't go into the reasons why. The new barn is closer to my house, and I don't even have to get on the interstate to get to it. It's a small barn (10 or 12 stalls) and very laid back. It's a nice change. There is no arena, so now I have to actually let the weather decide if I'm going to ride or anything, but the fields are perfect for conditioning for trail rides.

All is quiet on the lovebird front, well quiet except Sydney, who is always loud. I'm still toying with the idea of getting another lovebird for her, but haven't made a decision yet. Even if I had, it will take me a while to find a bird as there are very few lovies around here. I will probably finally make the decision if and when I find a suitable lovebird (male, peach-faced, preferrably a lutino, pied, or a Dutch blue, at least a couple years old).

In other news, I had to get a new power cord for my printer. My printer is on top of Pam the guinea pig's cage, and the cords are usually placed in a way that she can't reach them. For some reason, though, the power cord was not in it's usual spot, and Pam decided it looked like something nice to chew on. So, chew on it she did, until she chew right through it and left me with a power cord in two pieces.

I also have a few pictures I want to share, and a few other things I need to take pictures of so I can share them, but my camera's battery died and the charger is AWOL. I really wish I could find it. The charger for my back-up camera is also MIA, but that one isn't my fault. That camera is really my dad's camera and he just lets me use it. I suppose I could use my back-up back-up camera, but it eats batteries--a serving of 2 AA batteries for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In the meantime, I'm stuck taking pictures with my phone. 

I decided to start doing target training with the birds. I'm starting with Digby and Lenore. I won't try it with Sydney for a while longer as I'm still trying to teach her to be comfortable around us and take food from my hand.

I actually started with Lenore about a week ago, just "charging the clicker", teaching him that the click means treat. Today, I introduced Digby to that concept. Both of them caught on to that very quickly. I also introduced the target stick to both of them today.

Lenore caught onto the idea of the target stick within three tries. He is very eager to learn and get his treat. Digby, though, is a bit wary of the target stick. A couple of times she walked away from it, a couple of times she just looked at it, and ONCE she bit it. She got a reward for looking at it, but she got a bigger reward for biting it.

Both of the birds seem very willing to learn, especially Lenore. I'm hoping that by teaching Digby this, I'll be able to eventually get her to step up onto my hand. Digby has made a lot of progress since I got her in October, but there hasn't been any change in the past few months, so maybe this will help her overcome whatever fear it is that she has over bare arms and hands. I'm also hoping I can eventually do recall training with both of them.

Sydney has developed a habit that I think I need to break her of.

She has a stainless steel water dish. It's a great dish, and she loves to take baths in it, but she has recently started looking at her reflection in the sides and bottom of the dish. At first, I thought it was kind of cute, but now it seems like she's almost obsessive about it and she will stare at her reflection for several minutes at a time.

I think it stemmed from me moving Digby and Lenore to my bedroom. I did it partly because their new cage doesn't really fit anywhere in the living room, and partly because I wanted to get Sydney into a main living space. Since I moved Sydney into the living room, she has started chirping a lot--I think calling for the other birds, though it doesn't really sound like a contact call. She has also started the reflection staring.

In light of this, I've been trying to bring Digby and Lenore upstairs to visit more often, but they don't seem to like her very much, especially Digby. Lenore is sociable with her, but he obviously doesn't like her as much as she likes him. And while Sydney tries to be friends with Digby, Digby will have no part of it. Digby gets very mad at Sydney if she gets too close.

I've also tried giving Sydney more time out of her cage than she was getting, but it doesn't seem to help either. If she's out of her cage, she looks for a reflective surface, and as soon as she's back in her cage, she goes to her water dish to look at her reflection again.

Digby is my night owl. She is most active in the late evening and that is when she wants to play and spend time with me. She will happily be awake and active and playing until past 11 o'clock if I let her. She prefers to sleep in past 9 or 10 most days.

Lenore is my early bird. He is up as soon as he realizes it's morning, and he wants to go to bed by 9 o'clock at night. If I take too long to cover his cage, he will go to his sleep perch and, before he shared a cage with Digby, would hide himself in his fleece blanket/tent.

Because of these two extremes, having Digby and Lenore in the same cage has been interesting, especially in the morning. The cage is covered except for one little square right beside the perch where Digby and Lenore sleep, which is placed in a way that my bed is in their view. Digby likes to watch me as she falls asleep at night; Lenore likes to chirp at me in the morning.

Every morning, I wake up to Digby and Lenore chirping and being noisy. They have a set pattern in their morning chirps and sounds. Lenore will do a series of high pitched, loud chirps, his excited it's morning chirps. Digby will answer with a noise that sounds very much like a growl. It's the noise she makes when she's irritated. The two of them will go back and forth like this for several minutes every morning. Lenore is ready for the morning, and Digby wants him to be quiet so she can continue to sleep.

After getting back from Kansas Monday evening, Digby and Lenore were in their cage for no more than five minutes when they both decided to take a bath.

 
I recently got a new, stainless steel water dish for these two. It's a Coop Cup. I think it's the 20 ounce size. They love it. (Sydney has a very similar water dish, but I can never catch her in the act of taking a bath.) When I first put it in their cage, Digby went right for it. She got completely in the dish and managed to get the water all over her body and her head. Their previous water dishes, while they were a good size, didn't allow them to get completely in the water.

I haven't posted in a week or so because I've been out of town. I went with my mom and little brother to visit relatives in Kansas. We got back last night.

Digby and Lenore went with us. They did great, and Lenore charmed everybody as I knew he would. Digby, being shy and reserved around strangers, didn't shine like he did, but everybody agreed she was the prettier of the two (which I don't quite get--I think they are equally beautiful). Lenore behaved pretty good and wasn't too bitey. They were very good travelers.

Maggie and Ricky went too. They were both good. I taught Maggie to stay while we were out there. I'm always amazed by how quickly she picks up new things.

It is extremely hot here. The temperature is 96℉, with a heat index of 113℉. Right now it's storming and they rain is very much welcome.

Also, Blogger looks completely weird and has a new layout and look. I do not like it.

I realized today that it has been a while since I did a post devoted entirely to the birds, so here is an update. There isn't much to report, but here's what's going on with them.

Digby is doing great. She still won't step up on my bare skin, but I can pet her, as can my mom. She even let my dad pet her a couple of times. She is getting to be very friendly and is even a little more outgoing than she was. I just can not get over how much she has changed since I got her. I noticed last week that her feathers have become brilliant. I know it has to do with her improved diet.

Lenore, too, is doing good. He insists on me getting him out anytime he can see me. He still doesn't want to play independently when he is out of his cage--we're working on this. He "talks" to me constantly. He's very ornery, but at the same time, he can be quite sweet. He is so much fun to have around.

They are still in separate cages, and probably will be for a while. I'm still looking for that perfect cage for them to share.

For the past week, I've been making and serving finely chopped up veggies (what some folks would call bird mash or chop) for the birds, guinea pigs, and the bearded dragon. At first, everybody was unsure about eating eat, including the guinea pigs who normally eat anything I put in their bowl.

Now, the guinea pigs and Maxwell will all eat it quite happily (the guinea pigs are also getting lettuce like always). The birds are still unsure about what to do with it. Lenore will eat a little bit of it, but not much. Digby will eat it if I feed it to her piece by piece. I added some seed to the birds' dishes yesterday hoping to entice them into eating the other stuff; it didn't work too well. I should also mention that Delilah and Ricky both love the stuff too. Ricky will do tricks to get some.

I'm almost out of pellets, which means I will be ordering some more. I think I'll be trying Totally Organics Pellets. I also want to order some new toys.

On Thursday, I wrote about Digby breaking a flight feather that had blood on the broken end (see this post). What little bleeding there was stopped before I found it. I did not have to pull out the rest of the feather or take her to the vet. I was quite relieved that the broken feather was nothing serious.

But today's story is different. I got Digby out, planning on letting her be out for a while. I had her on her perch in the kitchen while I finished up a few chores. Something spooked her and she flew to the ground. When she landed, I saw she had a broken feather. The feather did not just break off. It broke but was still attached.

 I picked her up and put her back on her perch. I watched her for a few minutes and the feather seemed to be really bothering her. Then she lifted her wing trying to mess with it and I saw blood on the inside of her wing. I took her upstairs so my mom could help me. I put her on the bed and we observed her for a couple minutes. I tried toweling her to inspect her wing, but each time I did, she got very upset. After a couple minutes, I gave her some bird bread to calm her down. She happily ate while we decided what to do.

There aren't very many avian vets in Louisville, and none of them are open on Sunday evening. We do have an emergency vet, Jefferson Animal Hospital, but I am unsure of what they could do. I talked to them once that night Noey died; at the time, they told me all they would be able to do was stabilize her until their other branch that deals with exotics opened in the morning. I am fairly sure that they could have helped us tonight had we needed it. Even though we could have gone to the vet, we decided to pluck the feather ourselves.

We had never done it before, but both my mom and I have read about it in several different places. So Mom got out a small pair of needle nose pliers to do it with. I held Digby in a towel, while Mom held Digby's wing and pulled the feather out (no way was I about to be the one to pull the feather out...it was nerve-racking enough watching somebody else do it). Mom very carefully got a hold of the feather's shaft and pulled. It came out and the bleeding stopped. Digby ran up my arm to my shoulder and sat for a while.

The feather. Notice the break and the blood.

I am very, very thankful my girl is okay. I was prepared to take her to the vet if I needed to, but I feel this is one of those things you need to be able to do if you have birds. The most difficult part of it was not the actual pulling the feather out, but restraining Digby long enough to do so.

Digby is now doing fine. She has already gone to bed for the evening after some cuddling and eating some more bird bread.

I had Digby and Lenore out together again yesterday. They acted better than they did the other night. I let them play on the "big" playgym (see this post). It's not really all that big, but it's big in comparison to their body size and Lenore's little playgym.

I wisely gave them two dishes of food. At first, they each ate at their separate dishes. Then Lenore noticed Digby eating at the top of the gym. He decided to go see her. He climbed up the rungs until he got to the part that was completely vertical and not at an angle. He couldn't quite figure out how to get up there. He watched her for a minute before deciding to return to his food dish.

Then Digby saw Lenore eating. She climbed down from her spot to him and his dish and started eating with him. They took turns picking up food. There was no beak grabbing or foot biting like the other night. Then Digby decided that she wanted to go back to her original spot, so she headed in that direction. Lenore followed her. It was very cute.

Digby decided to scare me today.

I had her in the kitchen with me as I often do, and she was sitting on her perch, watching me and trying to hop onto me if I got to close. This is what she always does. I let her on my shoulder for a few minutes, then put her back on her perch.

She was not content to sit on her perch. She decided she needed to fly across the kitchen. Her wings are clipped, but I'm letting them grow out a little bit (the people who clipped them butchered her right wing). She didn't get much height, but she got a fair amount of distance. When she landed, I walked to her to pick her up and one of the feathers on her right wing was sticking out at a 90 degree angle from her wing. I put her on her perch and before I could inspect it, she smoothed it back down.

After a few minutes, she took off from her perch again, landing in the same spot. This time, the feather broke off and landed on the floor. I picked up her and the feather. The feather had a drop of blood on it! I put her on her perch and went to grab her towel. With my mom's help, I inspected the wing as best I could. Neither I nor my mom saw any blood on her wing, and she wouldn't let us look very much. She hates being toweled (which is really funny because she used to actually like it!) and wouldn't hold still.

Because I didn't see blood anywhere on her and couldn't find the remains of the broken feather, I decided to just keep an eye on her. Fortunately, she never bled and this evening she is being as active as ever.

Upon closer inspection of the feather, it was the one flight feather on that wing that had grown very much. Her left wing flight feathers are actually getting a bit long, but her right wing flight feathers are very, very short. I don't plan on letting her be flighted because our house isn't a safe place for a flighted bird, but I do want her to have feathers on her wings that don't look chopped up.

When this happened, I managed not to panic. I very calmly had her step up from her perch, very calmly walked upstairs, very calmly toweled her. When she tried to bite me, I remained calm. I am very proud to say I didn't panic. Sometimes I panic when things like that happen, but I stayed calm. (Side note: I believe retraining an ex-racehorse has a lot to do with my being able to stay calm. If he freaks, then I panic, then he panics too, but if he freaks and I stay calm, I am able to ride through whatever he does and calm him down as well.)

After allowing them to see each other and talk to each other quiet a bit from the safety of their cages, I decided to let Digby and Lenore meet each other tonight outside of their cages. I put a couple pieces of bird bread (which they have both decided is their absolute favourite food) out and let them both eat it.

They did pretty good together. There were a few times when one of them grabbed the other one's beak. They also took turns trying to getting the other bird's feet. There were a few squabbles, but for the most part they were good.

Digby kept stealing Lenore's food, once when it was hanging from his beak. At one point, Digby jumped off the table for some reason. Lenore followed her. Lenore very obviously likes Digby (I haven't seen anybody that Lenore doesn't like), but Digby seems to be a little unsure.

I think they will end up being fine with each other.

Digby discovered something yesterday. She discovered that being petted is actually pretty awesome.

I had on the birds' favourite shirt yesterday. It has beads on the shoulders that they love to pull off. When I wear this shirt, I do not allow them on my shoulders because of this, but every now and then, they sneak to my shoulder or hop to it before I can stop them. This is exactly what Digby did yesterday. She was very distracted by the bead in her mouth, that I took the moment to pet her. She loved it.

I got her off my shoulder and put her back on her perch. I tried petting her again, thinking she wouldn't let me, but she did. She actually lowered her head so I could pet it and her neck.

(Very poor quality, but you get the picture.)

So far she'll only let me pet her. My mom (her second favourite person) can very briefly touch her beak, something that she has been letting me do for the past week. I think we'll eventually get to the point where my mom can pet her too. I'm just thrilled that she let me pet her. For now, that is good enough.

Currently, both birds are in my room. Lenore is in his cage and Digby is on her T-perch on the other side of the room. They're chirping back and forth. These two are so cute.