Sunday, October 30, 2016

Teaching Our Parrots Independence, with Mattie Sue Athan

Back around 2006 I produced a series of podcasts about parrots. I would interview various people in the parrot world and post the podcasts on a special website.

Most of those podcasts are just as relevant today as they were ten years ago, so I'm going to post one every once in awhile.

The one I'm posting today is with Mattie Sue Athan, author of the best-selling Guide to a Well-Behaved Parrot. We had a fascinating discussion about encouraging independence in our parrots.

Enjoy!

PS: Mention is made of the website Scritches.com; that site has changed its purpose since then. The e-mail mentioned at the end of the podcast no longer exists.

Teaching Our Parrots Independence, with Mattie Sue Athan

Monday, October 24, 2016

Some Bizzaro Moments

I love the Bizarro comics by Dan Piraro, especially the ones with parrots.  So, with his permission, here are several of my most favorite ones.







Wednesday, October 5, 2016

The Joys of Foraging

The store was having a big sale on fresh organic broccoli; the kind of broccoli that comes on those huge stalks.

I personally like raw broccoli and all my birdies like raw broccoli, so I try to keep some in the house, when I think of it.

I couldn't pass up this deal, so I came home with two huge stalks of broccoli and some organic apples.

Now Charli loves "helping" me work on the computer, even going so far as to attack my fingers for not giving her scritches, as is her due. Anything that can keep Charli busy while I'm working is a good thing, and one of these stalks was a very good thing.

This is the simplest of foraging toys.  A bit of apple around both ends of the broccoli.  Charli not only enjoys eating apples and broccoli, I think she loves the chomping and dropping from the beak even more. Since she's in her cage, I don't mind a bit how much of a mess she makes.

I hope you can tell from the pictures that the stalk of broccoli is longer than she is.

If I'm lucky this will keep her busy all morning and then encourage her to take a little nap before deciding she must get out and "help" me!