Pets – Page 3 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Barcelona – Wild Parrots

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We were walking toward the Sagrada Familia doing some sightseeing when I heard a VERY familiar bird squawk.

It was the squawk of the Quaker Parrot (aka Monk Parrot) which is the type of bird Cynthia owns, the one that hates me.

We walked into the park and sure enough, up in the tree was a Quaker Parrot

As we looked around we saw more and more of them in the park.

Click for full size

They were EVERYWHERE! All up in the trees and waddling along the ground competing with the pigeons for food.

Click for full size

And I am sure they all hated me, just like Mr. Zippers. Just look at them…

Click for full size

Apparently there’s a very large colony of them in that park. I saw at least 4 or 5 dozen birds and one giant communal nest.

—
*pictures 1, 2 & 3 courtesy of Cynthia and her excellent telephoto lens.

Mr. Zippers in his hut

Click for full size

Mr. Zippers has a fuzzy hut in his cage. It’s where he sleeps at night. Our friend Beth was over for dinner one evening and upon seeing Mr. Zippers in his hut she exclaimed:

“Your bird lives in a pot-holder!”

Before turning out the lights for the evening, we like to make sure Mr. Zippers is in his hut so he doesn’t struggle to find his way in the dark. He seems to know it’s bed time when I say “Load the hut!” “Zippers, load the the hut you little green butt!” at which point he grumbles and then enters into the hut and then pokes his head out to give me one last squawk before bedtime.

Cynthia has been unable to get the bird to enter his hut by using this command but he does it every time for me.

Odd since Mr. Zippers hates me with a birdly passion.

Dooley News

We have been working on teaching Dooley to say
“Dooley’s a bad bird, Dooley’s in biiiiiiiiiiiig trouble”

The emphasis has been on the word “big” which
we pronounce “beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeg”

Dooley has mastered the first part. Previously he’s been able
to say his name and “I’m a bad bad birdy” so it’s come
pretty easy. Also, he’s nailed “beeeeeeeeeeeg” and loves
that word.

The part he’s struggling with is the word “trouble”

When this happens he uses other words he already knows in
an effort to figure out how to say the new word.

This has resulted in the following:

“Beeeeeeeeeeeeeg Cynthia!”
“Beeeeeeeeeeeeeg Zippers!”
“Tickle the beeeeeeeeeeeeeeg bad birdy!”
“I’m a beeeeeeeeeeeeeg bird”
“Beeeeeeeeeeeeeg …. BUB!”
“Jingle bad beeeeeeeeeeeeeeg!”

Al lthis and endless repetitions of
“Beeeeeeg! Beeeeeeg! Beeeeeeg! Beeeeeeg!”

He’ll get there. I just heard something that sounded like
the word “trouble” … it’s just a matter of time.

In other Dooley news there’s been a development
that’s not so pleasant.

Dooley is prone to a repetitive hooting when we leave the room
where his cage resides. It can sometimes get very insistent and
is quickly very irritating. The only remedy is to either go back in
the room or cover his cage.

Over the last few mornings there has been a hooting sound that
is just like Dooley’s but comes from the tree in the front yard. It
seems that there’s a mockingbird who loves that sound and has
been hooting on several mornings over the past few weeks.
The problem is that nothing shuts up the bird in the front yard.
Fortunately he’s only been going off in the morning as we are
headed to work.

Fight or flight

Dooley the African Gray parrot is African in name only. I purchased him from a breeder in Katy, TX. Suffice to say, he’s pretty much only known the inside of a cage for the entirety of his life. Sure, he comes out to explore on occasion or when I handle him, but the TV room is pretty much makes up his entire universe.

Dooley has never had to forage for food or defend himself from predators. His hardships, trials and tribulations tend to center around whether or not he gets some of the pasta we’re having for dinner or a piece of tasty pizza.

With that in mind, there was this one event that we still laugh about.

Since Dooley lives in the TV room he gets to watch a lot of TV. He loves the Simpsons and seems to get the jokes because he laughs in all the right spots. It has always been our impression that the TV holds no great mystery for Dooley. That was until the time we happened to be watching this show that featured a visit by Jack Hanna. If you’ve ever seen a guest appearance on The Letterman Show or Larry King Live you know that Jack brings out animals to show the host and the audience.

On this particular occasion Jack had some type of Owl. We weren’t paying all that much attention as it was going on.

We were fairly distracted. We tend to talk while the TV is on and Cynthia often just sit with me and read while I type away on my laptop. It’s a cozy little family scene.

So we’re all sitting there, just hanging out as we do, and that owl decides to launch itself off the arm of it’s handler and flies straight at the camera.

I guess with it’s wings outstretched and with it flying in the direction it was, Dooley must have thought that owl was coming to get him because he let out a lout HOOT and fell backwards right off his perch to bottom of his cage.

Dooley was unhurt and climbed back up the side of his cage to his perch once he determined the coast to be clear.

What does Dooley know about Owls? Much less any other predatory bird? I would have to say NOTHING. But his natural instincts just kicked in when he saw that owl and he did what comes naturally.

It’s also noteworthy to point out that Dooley is completely terrified of a small step stool we use around the house, squawking and retreating whenever he sees it. I guess roving bands of step stools once hunted the jungles of Africa, preying upon unsuspecting gray parrots and that genetic imprint also remains coded in Dooley’s DNA.

IÂ´m stuck in Folsom prison, and time keeps dragginÂ´ on

Best if viewed at full size

Camera: Sony Alpha 100
Lens: Tamron AF 28-75mm f2.8 XR Di

Full XIF Data

If it’s on the Internet, it’s gotta be true!

A while back I wrote a very “tongue-in-cheek” post about Dooley, my African Gray parrot.
The post was titled Dooley and the ice cube and was a humorous look at Dooley as he struggled to eat an ice cube. Complete with hilalrious photos it still makes me laugh and is one of my favorite posts.

The cool thing about this WordPress blog is that it gets indexed by all the search engines which leads to my posts showing up as results to various search queries. That means that people Googling search terms like “African Gray Parrot” or “Timneh” will stumble upon my posts about Dooley.

Apparently a gentleman named Bob over at Pecan Acres Pets stumbled upon my post about Dooley and the ice cube from just such a search and took to heart my statement about the migration of African Grays to Antarctica to feed on the ice.

He e-mailed me for more information about this behavior.

I did a google search for Greys and cold temperatures and the heading under your website name had the following:

Another little know fact about African Gray parrots is that every winter
they migrate to Antarctica to feed on life sustaining ice collected from
the…

Please tell me where I can find additional information about this?

Thank you,

Bob

Ok, I am NOT an authority on African Gray parrots. But it does not take a genius to know that these birds do not migrate to Antarctica. To make matters worse, Pecan Acres Pets is an outfit that SPECIALIZES in breeding and raising AFRICAN GRAY PARROTS…

They should know better!

I would have thought the joke obvious, especially after the line “African Gray parrots are sustained on a steady diet of french fries which grow wild and plentiful in the deepest jungles of Africa.”

It just goes to show that you can’t trust the Internet. Obviously my site is leading people astray with false information about the migratory behavior of African Gray parrots and it is apparent that Pecan Acres Pets needs to redefine “specialize”…

mmmmmmmm, donut

Lens: Sony 1.4 50mm
Click the image for XIF data.

The other bird

We all know Dooley. He’s my Timneh African Grey parrot. I’ve had him for nearly 10 years and he’s my buddy.

Alas, Dooley is not the only bird in this house.

About 5 or 6 years ago Cynthia decided she wanted a parrot of her own. We shopped around and considered Amazons and even looked into getting a scarlet red female Eclectus. After much consideration we decided that these birds might be a bit too intimidating for her due to their size. Our friends at Adventures in Birds suggested a smaller bird and told us about the Monk Parrot, also known as a Quaker Parrot.

This sounded like a fine bird but they did not have any ready for adoption at the time nor did they have a clutch being raised.

As we were leaving one of the shop keepers said “What about Mr. Zippers?” and Cynthia turned around and said “Mr. Zippers? What ABOUT Mr. Zippers?” You could see it in her eyes that she loved the name.

They introduced us to Mr. Zippers and told us the story of how he came to be named.

As Mr. Zippers was being raised and hand fed the caretaker of this particular bird managed to botch a batch of the feeding formula. Traditionally you prepare the formula in a bottle while it sits in a pot of water over a flame.

The keeper was unable to prepare it in this manner (for reasons I don’t recall) and proceeded to heat it in the microwave. This resulted in a formula that was, unbeknownst to the caretaker, scalding hot on the inside and only warm on the outside.

When the formula was drawn into an eye dropper and then fed to the young Quaker chick it scalded his crop and did some severe damage. Being the humanitarians they are they took the young injured parrot to the vet and had his crop stitched up to repair the damage. The end result was a baby parrot with stitches in his neck that looked like a zipper which led to the name.

They did not know if the bird would ever talk and at the time he was still being hand fed. Cynthia is a bit of sucker for a hard luck story (which explains our longevity) and decided she wanted to adopt Mr. Zippers. The folks at Adventures in Birds agreed to let us adopt Mr. Zippers and arranged for us to collect him in a few weeks, once he was eating solid food.

When we brought Mr. Zippers home we were thinking here’s a nice, sweet birdy who will be Cynthia’s little green companion. He’ll sit on her shoulder and eat tasty treats and nobody will care if he can talk or not because he’s a sweet little guy who’s had a rough tough life of toil and strife but now has a home with a loving couple who will care for him for the rest of his little green life.

Fast forward a few years.

Mr. Zippers can talk!
He can say “I love you” and “I’m a bad bad birdy” and he sings a little song that Cynthia made up that goes:

“Handsome little Zipper-zoo!
Just a bird
Yes he is
A baby bird”

He clucks and whistles and he just adores Cynthia. Yes, he’s completely devoted to Cynthia.

And as much as he loves her, he HATES me.

This is pretty much all I see when I look at Mr. Zippers

That is 120 grams of the most spiteful, beaky, hateful little bird I have ever seen in my life! I am a giant of a creature to him. I could crush him like a bug but he could give a hoot. He will come for me with his beak wide open just itching to chomp on me and cause me as much pain as he can. He is absolutely FEARLESS!

When I walk across the room his head follows me with his beak wide open as if he’s just hoping I’ll fall into this open maw. If I kiss or hug Cynthia in his presence he gets infuriated and squawks and hisses until it stops.

That bird hates me with every fibre of his being.

But he loves Cynthia and she loves him.

I pray to God he never gets loose lest I find myself being angrily beaked to death in my sleep by a one bird version of Hitchcock nightmare. In fact I better make sure his cage is secure before I turn in tonight.