Parakeet Journal

I'm starting this journal Thursday afternoon, March 3. We've had this beautiful bird for ten days. She goes through periods of napping and chattering, and it seems it could be useful to make a note of these times. For the last few mornings Vicki has gotten her out of the cage, but she seems very frightened or cautious and sits quietly on top of her playground, although today she climbed down its ladder to retrieve a slice of apple.

Today after lunch I gave her the stick from a corn-dog, a piece of wood like a popsicle stick but thinner. I thought she might like to shred it, but after she carefully removed the miniscule remaining fragments of corn, she let the stick fall through the grating to the bottom of her cage.

She makes a wide variety of vocalizations, some squeaky-wheel sounds, some screams, some chortles and clucks. For the first few days we thought she was having fun screaming at Tashi, as he would run from the room when she did, but we haven't noticed that connection recently. Today during lunch I thought she might be meowing at Riker, who was lounged in the sunshine nearby. If she was, Riker did a fine job of ignoring her.

posted by Daniel @ 3:22 PM