Parrots being adorable; Oz update

Xposted in large part from my journal. The Osbick Bird just said, very clearly, "what was that?" I just about fell off my bike. Good thing I'm riding a trainer, and not rollers!

He is also now accompanying the techno to which I pedal with some really really adorable parrot sounds. I hasten to mention that he is capable of several parrot sounds which are far from cute in any way, which is one of the reasons he is not joining my permanent zoo no matter how tempting that possibility becomes, or how pretty, sweet and generally undemanding he is.

I bathed him for the first time yesterday, with my kitchen sink sprayer (the method second in rank only to sharing a shower with me amongst parrots in my home generally). At first, he was all flappy and "noooo" but after about 2 seconds, he realized what was happening and went into "OMG pure bliss' mode, complete with poofed feathers, outstretched wings and greedily drinking the waem water from the sprayer. Now he's even prettier and more day-glo;it turns out that parrot feathers get dingy and are not self-cleaning. Tropical birds like baths, they just do.

He will also step onto a dowel from inside his cage now, a huge step that means I don't need to towel him to get him out anymore. It still takes a few tries, but I'm thrilled.

Another cute but kinda gross bird thing is how Miz Kaya likes to lick the sweat off of me after I've been working out; the webbing between my fingers is her favorite spot, and she's very persistent. Um, burd? Thanks, I think, but ew..



Gavin and Kaya playing adorably on their tree, in the good light for photography that exists only for about 10 minutes on days between the equinoxes at my house. Taken with the point-and-shoot, because by the time I have the fancy camera out, the birds will invariably have taken their "looking at the camera" pose, of which there are already 100000ish photos.











Gavin so pretty. Stop using your tail as a toy, OK? He'll do things like "preen" it and then fall asleep with the thing all mashed under one claw. You can see what it looks like by the time he's getting ready to molt.




The Osbick Bird.