Alistair and Henry

Today is the 26th of April 2011. Alistair and Henry have now been able to call my place home for about 3 months. They still have some reservations about my hand getting too close to them, but I think they identify me as a good person. I bring them food and water. I clean their cage. I even give them a spray shower followed by a blow dry with my hair drier.

Henry especially enjoys the showers. He steps right up for a good soaking and he holds up his wings so that I can get under his wings. I guess it would be incorrect to call those his arm pits because he doesn't have arms. But he just loves those spray showers.

I have been working with the two birds since I adopted them, so that they will remember that when good things to them, I am involved. With that strategy I have made some progress. So far I have been able to get Alistair to step up on my hand when he has floundered to some unfimiliar place in the room and finds himself lost after a short fly around. He then identifies my hand and the "up" command as an assist to return to the security of his home, the cage. I try to let them out at least once a day, but they don't always choose to leave the cage. Some days they would rather say inside.

And that is alright too, because I like it to be their decision. I believe giving the birds a certain amount of freedom in choosing what they do and when they do it, will go a long way toward building a bond with the guys. Of the two birds, I believe Henry is the smarter of the two. Henry has demonstrated the ability of forethought. That is the ability to expect something to happen before it actually occurs and then adjust his behavior prior to the event.

An example of this was one day when the two birds were on the play top, outside their cage. They were just wandering around feeling free to do play around with their bird toys or preen themself. I decided it was near enough to feeding time that I would prepare one of their meals. There are two special ceramic food cups I keep inside the cage for their food. I had removed the cups for cleaning and placed the cups on my desk. While I was placing the new food in the cups, I noticed Henry was watching me. Before I finished my task, I watched Henry climb back inside the cage and then stand by the spot where I always put the food cups. He watched my watched what I was doing and then thought about what I was going to do with the food cups. He observed my actions, expected an action to follow and then he went to the spot where he could best take advantage of what he expected me to do. Pretty clever for such a little guy.

Alistair, however, seems to be a little slow on the learning curve. It took Alistair a couple of weeks to figure out how to get back inside the cage after he has climbed out for some exercise. I still like the little guy. He just needs a little special attention.

I plan to make life for the two birds as rewarding as I can. Within reason, I want them to feel they have some say in the way they live their lives. They are not prisoners in my home. They are part of the family. I want them to feel as though here is where they belong, because this is home and home should be everyone's safe place.