Happy Father's Day!

A VERY busy day for the Birdroom and the store alike this Sunday! Apparently, everybody wanted to shop for their pets this Father's Day :D The birds got very impatient with me when I didn't feed and deliver salad (fruit and vegies chopped up) until 2 in the afternoon! Sometimes it's difficult to keep to their schedule, and they just have to be a bit patient.

We have three new lorikeets, a Lutino (yellow) Scaly, A Rainbow and a very sweet little Red-collar. I love baby loris at that uncoordinated stage! Heebie and Jeebie, who I'm quite surprised are still with us, being such nice little lorikeets, flipped out! This was their first time out on the playgyms all together, and it was like Heebie and Jeebie didn't even realize the other three were Lorikeets! At first they kept as far away from the new birds as possible before I broke up the nerves with some nectar mix, and they all shared a little.

Archie has gone to his new home, where I hope he'll have an easier time settling down. Alex is still with us and we are looking at the possibility of him becoming the store mascot and staying at Petbarn - at this stage I'm still assessing his temperament to check that not only will everyone be happy with him, but that he will be happy with the situation. Some birds prefer to be handled by a small amount of people and others will willingly go to anyone friendly and Alex falls somewhere between the two from what I've seen - I'll keep you posted!

In the meantime, the Birds and I wish all the Dads out there a very Happy Father's Day weekend!

Double Alexandrine blast

Today I got lots of photos!

This is Alex:

He makes for entertaining poses :D

And this is Archie!

As you can see, Archie is a big fan of baths. He jumped in when he saw the Kakariki having a bath in the blue dish, although somehow, he managed his without wetting his head feathers at all! Here he is with Heebie the Scaly Lorikeet:

And here's Heebie with Jeebie, throwing out a beakful of his wet nectar mix!

Back to Alex and Archie, they found a budgie toy that proved a little too entertaining this afternoon...

Alex had it first (He is 'top bird' and he gets toys before Archie :))

Archie quickly noticed and quietly sidled over to see if Alex would share...

"Pleeeeeease, Alex?"

"This... is not what I had planned." Alex ran to the other side of the cagetop to aviod Archie, but as he did so, he managed to flip the ring up and drop it over his neck! I had to put my camera down to rescue him. :D I admit I may have laughed at him for a little bit... his expression was so baffled, it was priceless!

"Haha! Now' it's mine!" - Archie swooped in when Alex stayed warily back, and grabbed it from himself. Two minutes later he dropped it over his neck as WELL and I had to go and rescue him, at which point i told them the toy was not suitable for Alexes, and hid it away!

Alexnadrines... nothing but trouble!

Oh - my quest for Hahn's macaws was met with a no... for now! I'll keep trying :D

Lunch with Alex

Firstly I didn't smuggle in the camera... no photos yet!

Today I spent my lunch with Alex, the new Alexanrine. He happily shared my bowl of noodles, then climbed down to the table and investigated all the odds and ends there. Watching slyly as I unwrapped my cake (It was a sponge cake), he then made a mad dash at it, grabbed a beakful, and walked backwards with it, looking triumphant. Funnily enough he showed no interest in my pack of Rollo chocolates - if he had I wouldn't have let him eat that since chocolate can prove toxic to birds - as if he knew he wasn't allowed. He was happy to play with the paper wrapped though!

Alex also met the young boy Archie today. Archie wasn't too friendly and mainly ignored the bigger bird, but Alex was quite interested in him, once even picking up the end of his tail and nibbling it, as if he thought Archie might be offering it to him as a toy! Though they got along well they are still housed separately, it being best to give male Alexandrines their own space.

I've also undertaken a mission to convince the shop to buy a couple of macaws! Who knows if I'll actually be successful, but you have to start somewhere!

Photos up next post :D

Another new boy!

Another new addition to the growing gang of handraised birds in the Birdroom today - we got in a second Alexandrine. This one is called Alex (Alex the Alex :D) and is a very handsome five year old. And BIG - when I had him on my shoulder this afternoon, it was like having a small hawk sitting on me! So I've settled him into his own cage for tonight, tomorrow I'll introduce him and Archie, the on year old Alexandrine I got yesterday. They'll still be housed separately unless they decide to become instant BBF or something like that, but it'll be interesting to see them interact with one another since they've both been 'only birds'.

Archie had a fun playtime this morning, out with the other handraised birds - the two Scaly Lorikeets and the Kakariki. He was a bit freaked out by the smaller birds, leaning away from them in alarm when they ventured near - and Heebie, the larger of the two Scalys, was hilarious with him. He kept stalking over to a higher perch, sitting right above Archie's head, while the poor Alexandrine (around four times Heebie's size!) pinned his eyes and fluffed up his head feathers nervously. Heebie seemed to know Archie was so nervous of him and continued to strut up and down on his perch just above Archie. I warned him if Archie bit his foot off I was just going to watch, but he knew best. Too fearless for his own good, that Lorikeet. Jeebie at least had some common sense and stayed away from the bigger bird!

Heebie wasn't finished with tormenting poor old Archie though... early in the afternoon, I was chopping fruit and vegetables and put out some celery pieces for the birds to peck at. Though there were plenty of smaller bits, because Archie grabbed the largest one, Heebie wanted it too. As Archie held it in one foot, Heebie sidled up and began to take bites out of it! So, so cheeky.

Didn't take my camera in today... will smuggle it into tomorrow, and hope the new boss doesn't notice me taking snaps of the birds :D 'Uh - yes, as a matter of fact this IS work related. Sorta...'

New boys

Got a couple of new boys in the Birdroom today! There's a Kakariki who's quite sane... for a Kakariki! They're typically very highstrung and crazy even as handraised birds, but this guy is okay :)

We got a semi-tame Alexandrine in, one of those I sold late last year/early this year, a year old boy called Archie. Didn't have my camera on me when he came in this afternoon, so he'll be my next photo subject.

Here we have a very handsome pair of Nanday Conures, which I don't get in too often - they are beautiful, friendly for aviary birds, coming and taking seed from my hand. Lovely calm natures.

I got in quite an interesting bunch of budgies, with some lovely colours among them.

This photo came out very interesting with the wingbeat shown!

And last of all - she must have the last word - Peaches, who saw me snapping photos of all the other birds and shot over to get her share of adoration!

Photos photos photos!

Here are the photos of Heebie, Jeebie and Peaches! The Scaly twins decided to all but flood the birdroom with their bath today, and Peaches the Greencheek Conure spent another spoiled afternoon passed around to everyone's shoulders and smooching up to customers :)

Back to work

I'm back from a two-week New Zealand holiday to visit relatives! The birdroom has been pretty quiet in my absence, though I'm expecting the usual end-of-year seasonal birds to begin any week now.

Handraised birds are down to three - the two siblings of Spick and Specks, named Heebie and Jeebie! They are sweet little lorikeets, just starting to come out of their shell after a few days with us. The other handraised bird is Peaches, a little Greencheek conure. Her sibling got sold recently so she's been hanging out with me and the other staff members for most of the day, getting spoiled! She's a bit of a sweetheart, though stubborn, like many a conure.

Will try to get some photos tomorrow!