Bird Brains?

Things here are going well. The heat and humidity have moved into Virginia - but it hasn't reached the 100's yet (they were talking on the news about "remember how last year it was already reaching the 100's at this point last year"). Because of the heat during the day, we've also had scattered showers with thunderstorms in the evenings. Since we're on well water out here, I'm not complaining one bit. A few years ago 3 people in our neighborhood actually had to re-drill their wells because of the drought. We have a crick (it's not large enough to be called a creek *GRIN*) out back that is from a spring and we can tell how the water table is when it disappears.

My thighs are a bit sore- as we were discussing yesterday while I was at what I'm going to start to call work even thought I'm volunteering (Project Perry).- you definately get a workout. I'm not lifting 50 lb dogs and such, but I'm doing a lot of squatting and stuff like that. I don't mind at all though. Chicken and Cricket left my fingers alone yesterday- I think it's only when I put down newspapers that they bother me. Cricket on the other hand wouldn't get off the food dish for me to to refill it, and then when I brought it back, she couldn't wait for me to put it down. I was worried I'd crush her feet and then when she did move her feet off the rack she helped me to set the the container down - apparently I wasn't putting it down fast enough for her. :) Andrea couldn't get the water dish out of the other Conure room and asked if I could get it for her (one of the Conures wouldn't get out of the food dish for her [sound familiar?] and she couldn't grab it). I went in to get it and PJ and one of the other Quakers wouldn't get off my shoulder. I had to wait for her to return with the food dish. She told me they would get off when I headed into the double doors but I had to show her that they would ride in with me. She just laughed. I found out the other Quaker had lost his mate last week. :( I went back to finish cleaning and she told me later that the Quaker was giving her his feathers while she was picking up feathers from the floor (we save fallen feathers). After I finished with the sun-room conures I went to wash my hands and I looked out at the African Grey aviary and noticed Matt who looked like he was on his cell phone and I noticed that the phone was ringing. I went to check it out and the number listed looked like his. Andrea had told me last week that she doesn't normally answer the phone, and at that point the phone stopped ringing. I went to check to see if the number listed was the same one that he had listed on the front door. It was, so I headed down to the aviary to see what was up. He had locked himself in! :) Andrea had told me it had happened when they were first building it, the outside door is basically just a screen door and they hadn't put the metal screen up, so they broke through the screen and got out that way. He had since put up the metal screen and the yarn that he had linked to the handle had gotten hooked under the handle and wouldn't lift it up. He said he had been calling for 20 minutes, Andrea had her cell phone in her car, he didn't have my cell phone number, and I had been in the sun room with Chicken and Cricket and couldn't hear the phone since they were talking to me.

Once Andrea and I were done with the inside birds we headed down to the African Grey Aviary to help clean their feeding platform. I love being whistled at, even if it is by a bird. ;) My job was to pick up the nut shells around the platform - hence the sqats and sore thighs. Andrea scrubbed the platform that the feeder sits on. She got quite a workout too. Before doing that though, she had to go get a drill so the feeder could be dismantled. I sat out in the flight part of the aviary, and waited. It was funny - one of the greys was interested in me and I watched him walk up behind me (I was sitting in a folding chair) and around me, watch me for a bit and then walk away. They really are curious things - they watched everything we did, and some will fly right up to watch and others will hang back, just like humans. There is one really old one, she's at least 50 years old, Pearl. She likes to hang out at the food and she's arthritic too- when you think of a crotchedy old woman, think of Pearl. :D She tells you exactly what she thinks when you get too close and she doesn't want to go anywhere. So yeah, getting her to move to clean the feeding platform was fun. And she wasn't happy and glared at us the whole time. Matt had built a little perch on the platform just for her too. A few weeks ago Matt had found a snake skin, and he caught the snake today too. It was a smaller black snake, and I brought it home and released it here. I took it to the end of my neighborhood and it slithered off into the woods. Believe me, it will be a lot happier here than there. I actually miss the birds when I'm not there. I come home exhausted, but that's a good feeling though.

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