When I was taking pictures of myself in a chicken leg hat and looking nice and ridiculous, I had an audience: two fluffy bundles of bouncing curiosity. I poked my camera into the cage for some random bird pics and, to my surprise... They weren't afraid of the camera anymore! In fact...
These cuties were hopping up on my hand to get a closer view of the camera! Curious little buggers! Being adorable and everything!
The birds must be turning 1 year old soon. We don't know when exactly, as we were only told they were between 8 and 11 weeks old when we bought them last year in the first week of September. But they sure are growing up quick! I think this might be what we humans call their 'Terrible Two's' since they can be horribly grumpy for no reason at all and like to make a show of angrily throwing things to the ground when you give them something to play with. Especially Al'ar, and she makes quite the show out of it too. It goes like this: I give her a piece of paper, she yanks it out of my hand with her beak, and throws it to the ground. Then she stares at it like she's waiting for it to come back up on it's own accord, and if I'm not quick enough to grab it, she turns around and poops on it.
Giving them snacks has slowly turned into quite the struggle as well: We start with giving Al'ar a snack, then when she's busy, we give Anzu his, but most times Al'ar will drop her snack to steal Anzu's. Only to drop it again when we give Anzu a new one. She's a monster, I'm telling you!
See that face? I'm pretty sure she's contemplating her next step in world domination. "Today, this cage, tomorrow, the wooooorld!"
We've been trying to let them fly around the entire living room area now, and no longer fence off the small part of the room with a curtain when we let them out. It's been quite an experience for them. We've got them trained to recognise a wooden perch as a safe spot, so any time they freak out and fly around in a flurry we can hold up the stick for them to land on. However...
They've also discovered that this brick wall makes for awesome snacking, often leaving a massive trail of brick dust and bits behind on my bookcase below.
Luckily for us, there's also moments when they are the sweetest little balls of fluff you can imagine. They are so relaxed around our hands now, that they'll come and sit on our hands if we hold food next to it inside the cage, and outside the cage, we both had a bird hop on our shoulder to reach food. I know, it's still bribery, but it's a step forward! We're also able to get closer and closer to them while they're eating from a sprig of millet, so close, in fact, that yesterday, Al'ar brushed my cheek, and Anzu my nose, with their foreheads just to get to the millet! (which, by the way, was REALLY SOFT.)
But their cuteness just explodes when they're close to falling asleep. They're extremely aware of my camera, still, so every attempt of catching it on camera I have made today so far has fallen flat because they're wide awake the second I start recording, but this is an impression of what has pretty much been all the sound coming from the living room this morning: Al'ar muttering to herself while falling asleep.
(vertical video syndrome! I know.)
There's even a little videobombing by Anzu. If that didn't make you melt, I don't know what will!
These two have been behaving so well lately! They've taken to preening our hair when we stick our head into the cage, they accept food from between our fingers when they're outside the cage, they're more relaxed outside the cage (well, mostly, apart from that one time that Anzu missed his landing and ended up in a tall vase. We had to tip the vase over before he realised what way was out.. Poor thing.), they have learned how to shred paper into longer and longer strips, which indicates that they're slowly leaning towards nesting behaviour...
We have had some scary, unpleasant moments too, though: Apart from that time that Anzu missed his landing (he was aiming for a roll of wrapping paper), the other day we let them fly loose for a while and then shut the cage again, but we forgot to close the top of the nesting box properly and Alar got out. I walked into the living room and she scared the living hell out of me, being on the other side of the room, all panicky, clinging to the curtains... However, we were able to lure her back to the right side of the room with nothing more than the wooden stick we use when we're playing with them outside the cage, so we got Al'ar back inside in no time at all. She's been much more outgoing since, though. It's pretty weird. Not that we're complaining, mind, just unexpected!
(I'm calling them him and her now, but we're still not sure what gender they are. Unless one starts laying eggs, I'm afraid we won't find out for a while, either! But I don't mind. )
What the hell is this?! Well, I've been on a water kick lately, but the taste of water (especially the tap water where I live) is kind of... meh. And yes, that is the most accurate description I could think of. The odd contraption in the picture? An empty juice bottle, one lemon cut up in bits, and 1 liter of water. I go through 2 of these a day, easily! Yay for healthy habits!
And what the hell is that?! Well, I've also been on a crochet kick! I'm working on a Secret Project for someone that I'm pretty sure doesn't read this anyway, but to err on the side of caution, I'll just call it the Secret Project. It's worked up in Shachenmeyer Nomotta Bravo, a wonderful acrylic yarn that I used to make the Great A'Tuin back in 2010. I had a whole ball left because apparently, I suck at calculating the amount needed to crochet 1 turtle. However, I might need to go out and get more! I'm running out and I still need to crochet 2 legs, a nose, a tail and some horns! (that's all the hints you're getting from me, by the way.) After that, it needs dressing up, which I've decided to do in felt. Which brings me to the next dilemma. Details on felt: paint on, or embroider? Would paint hold well enough? Embroidering all the details on would take forever (trust me, there's a lot of details), but the result would be more sturdy. It's an issue I haven't decided on yet.
And as a bonus, here's why trying to set up a photo booth on the dining table next to the bird cage for a bit of close-up photography proves to be impossible in my house these days.
That's an empty roll of paper towels. And one unbelievably active bird trying to rip the whole thing to shreds while screaming with its mouth full of paper. It's unbelievably hilarious and distracting at the same time.
(apologies in advance for the somewhat crappy photos. There's something wrong with my camera. Something horrible. That makes every picture I take come out pixelated, grainy and unpretty. I did what I could... But this seems beyond my expertise. (I probably messed with some settings or something... Knowing me, I fiddled with a button and now I can't get it to be as before...) )
Who let the birds out? We, we, we, we, we! They've been enjoying some time out of the cage in the living room and oh boy, are they having fun with it! Their favourite spot seems to be in the chains of our dining table lamp, but the bar between the lamps is not a bad spot to sit either. They're slowly but surely coming closer to us as well. Where they would fly off towards the highest point in the room they could find before, they now happily hop around on the table, even with us sitting right next to it, and even enjoyed a bit of dipping their beaks in a bowl of water not 30 cm. from where I was sitting! Not bathing, yet. Though it was close.
We're trying to teach them to step up, hence the big stick in the picture they're eyeballing there, which will allow us to train them better and eventually might even get them hand-tame (fingers crossed), and so far they think it's a great game to fly up on the stick, allow us to cart them around for a little while, and fly off again. Last week, they totally got into it and would jump on my stick from long distances, flying to it from the cage when I was on the other side of the room, getting really close to my hand... (this picture is from last week, by the way. As you can see, Anzu enjoyed a bit of bathing, and hadn't dried up completely yet. His tummy is all wet..)
Tomorrow, they'll get to enjoy some more time out of the cage. Who knows, maybe they'll get even closer to us then! Or won't, and eat the curtains. Or the table. Who knows what kind of monkey business they'll get into?
I mean...
With a face like this, you know you can expect anything.
Let the birds out of their cage for the first time. Well, the first time on purpose, that is. They got out by accident last week and had some nasty encounters with the windows. This time, we decided to let them out and keep a close eye on them. They were scared, at first. Especially when only one of the two had found its way out of the cage and couldn't find its buddy. But giving it time, and keeping calm, we managed to get both birds out and after a while, they were chasing each other through the air like nobody's business! Getting them back in the cage when it was their bedtime was a mess, however... It took us over an hour to catch both and get them in.
We're getting a new, big cage next week, which can open at the top and is much bigger, and has a large door so we can let them out and they can actually get in when they want to. We also hung up some curtains to shield off one part of the living room when we want, so we can let them out in a smaller area. Less chasing for us. Yay!
And sorting through the stash of a dear old lady. She never threw anything away... And this is only half of what was in the giant bag her daughter gave me. We believed that was all the stash she had left, but she's keeping an eye out for more because with my grandma, you never know. I also took the pillow back with me. It seemed so strange to do this, but the BF told me it would be good: it bears good memories. And it was something between my grandma and me. I don't know. I just know that it makes me smile when I see it, even though I still am picking off cat hairs any time I pick it up.
Next week, I will hopefully get somewhere with celebrating those 100 posts of mine. Stay tuned!
It has been a dream of mine to own a pet of my own. I grew up with two cats in the house, have always had rabbits until I moved out of the house, the BF grew up with parrots... So to live in our own house, with just the two of us, without any pets.. It took some getting used to. And there was also the eczema issue, which means that any pet that leaves hairs behind is a no-go for me. In other words: pets were out of the question.
This Monday, I lamented the lack of animal companions in our household out loud and declared: "I want a pet! Any pet! Even a fish. You know what? I want a fish. I'll take a goldfish!" The BF, ever the enabling one, said he'd give me a goldfish if that was what I wanted. So off to the pet shop we went! Since it's a small pet shop, we heard the chirps of birds as soon as we came in and, since we couldn't find the fish tanks immediately, wandered down the aisles towards the bird cages. And promptly fell in love. With two little lovebirds.
Actually, no, I should rephrase. We fell in love with all 4 of the lovebirds they had at the shop. We just couldn't take all of them home! So after some deliberation, and some planning, and some measuring and researching possible tables we could put a bird cage on, and some q&a with the nice lady from the pet shop, and some more q&a, and some back and forthing, and a trip to Ikea on Tuesday evening after work, and a trip to the pet shop on Wednesday during lunch time...
We are now the proud owners of two gorgeous little lovebirds!
Meet Anzu and Al'ar! Geeky names for geeky pet-owners. These little pretties are 3 months old, just the right age so we can still train them and let them get used to being handled by people. They're currently slowly but surely getting used to the cage and their new surroundings after a scary trip home in a tiny, tiny cardboard box and have been chirping and chattering away quite loudly already (sorry, neighbours) but they're quiet and more relaxed at the moment. Expect more updates with gorgeous bird pictures! But not now. Now it's time to admire these two gorgeous birds some more!
