8 October 2011 Henry and Alistair

 After a short sing song to Alistair, Henry started paying attention to my camera.

 Meanwhile, Alistair played with one of his favorite toys. The black hair elastic.

 Did I say this was Alistair's favorite toy.

Lately, both Henry and Alistair have been demonstrating signs of connecting to me in a social way. When I am talking to them, they will watch me and sometimes talk back to me in their own way.

28 Sept 2011 Henry and Alistair

Henry and Alista like to hand out onto of the bookshelf when I let them out.

 

Sometimes Henry will begin singing a song and do a dance that fails to interest Alistair. Either that or Alistair just knows better than to respond.

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.

... and watch the clouds go sailing by.

Lately, we have been experiencing some more seasonal weather. Not a bad thing really, considering California's ongoing water issues. This year is supposed to be an El Nino year, so we could actually see more than the typical for this season. So as not to disappoint us, the rains came again during the night. Not too heavy, but enough to soak everything.

After breakfast and coffee, we put on our boots and did a short hike up The Hill to The Bench. The day turned out to be just great. The air was clear and the clouds gathered to show off their shapes. I took a lot of images and posted a few of them below.

Still Sad about Loosing My Little Pal

I find myself unconsciously behaving as though Dusty is still around. I notice myself thinking Dusty is sitting on the back of my chair while I am at the computer or I am at the kitchen table. When I leave or enter the house, I still quickly close the back door. I not so much to prevent a "jail break", but because I was always trying to prevent a stray mosquito from entering the house and infecting my little friend with some nasty illness.

I still try to be extra quiet when I enter our bedroom after sunset because we would keep Dusty's cage at the far end of our bedroom when we put him to bed. On weekends he would be up before us and demand we uncover his cage. Especially if he heard us talking. Dusty didn't mind staying in our room at night. He liked to be where everyone else was and that was where we slept.

In the mornings, we would carry his cage/home downstairs so that he could have his breakfast the same time as us. When ever we sat at the kitchen table, Dusty would want to be on the back of our chair. Then after a while he would prefer to quietly sit on our leg, up close to the table cloth.

We both still miss Dusty and still talk a lot about the little things he used to do with us. We are both sad he passed away, but I am especially thankful for something that is very important me. That is that when the time came, at least one of us could be there with him to make an effort to comfort him in what was sure to be some very confusing and scary final moments of his life.

Dusty

I earned your trust and will miss you dearly.
May you rest forever on a feather.
22 July 2009

B2WD Bike to Work Day

Thursday was Bike to Work Day. I took advantage of the timing afforded to me by the event starting at 6:30 am and I did not have to be at work until 9:20 am. I plotted out and hit up 16 "Energizer Stations". I loaded up on everything that was free. I picked up tote bags, bagels, bananas, an apple, a half dozen mini size chocolate cup cakes, various coupons, a T-shirt and a water bottle. Not a bad haul and I was able to log in about 24 miles before I stated work. Cool.

(click on map to enlarge)
Not the most direct route to work, but it made for a nice morning ride.