Feathered Couples in our Family

These two cockatiels are my Tweety and Tinkerbell. If you check back in my June post, you can read back on how I got them. Aren't they so sweet? I think I kinda surprised them here with my cell phone camera. They look like they're saying, "What do you think you're doing here?!" Or maybe, "Excuse me!"

This next pair belong to my sister, Veronica, who helped me pick up my cockatiels in May. These two are named Kiwi - one is Kiwi Girl (the one on the right) and the other is Kiwi Boy (the one on the left). Sadly, she is still missing Blackjack, her black capped conure that flew away in April. She got Kiwi Boy the same day I got my cockatiels so that her Kiwi Girl wouldn't get lonely while Blackjack is gone. The two Kiwis hit it off together well, though, as you can see.

By the way, the pictures below are of my sister's missing Blackjack.  In case you or anyone you know in the Virginia peninsula or surrounding areas may have seen Blackjack (or came across a posting from someone trying to find his owner), I thought I'd post it here.  He answers to his name and sometimes even says it in his sleep.  Please feel free to leave a message here or comment here if you have any info.  

Two Thoughts and a Tuesday Tune

First of all, where did Spring go? We had such a long winter (thanks, Punxatawney Phil for the warning!) and even had a couple of snowstorms to make this past winter quite a memorable one for the kiddies who got to have snow days. Now we're going through week after week of above 90 degree temperatures (with heat indices above 100 in many areas - like where I live). What's up with that?!





Second of all, I think my cockatiels are finally warming up to me.  In case you don't know much about pet birds, handfed ones tend to be more tame and more sociable to humans.  Those that are not handfed tend to be a bit more of a challenge to tame and socialize.  The ones I have were not handfed as babies so they're not used to being handled.  In fact, they would usually move farther away from me in their cage when I try to spend time with them. I don't really mind that because I didn't want to have birds that would get mad if you don't spend "a lot" of time with them.  After all, I didn't want to neglect my dog, two cats, and worse yet - my own family!  LOL!

My Tweety and Tinkerbell probably thinking I'm a nut for getting inside the cage with my camera.

So if my birdies wanted to be "homebodies" and not venture out of the cage much, I really wanted them to have a roomier cage to move around in.  Even though I really liked the Oriental design of their original cage, I just didn't think it was big enough for two birds. And though I had no clue if I'd even be able to get Tweety and Tinkerbell to move to a new cage, I did some price-shopping for larger cages.

I finally found a used cage (formerly home to an amazon parrot) posted on Craigslist by a military family at the nearby army base.  My husband and I went to their house to check it out and went back home with it on the back of our pickup truck.  It's pretty cool!  I cleaned it up and let it sit next to their original cage for a few days so my birdies could get used to seeing their future home.

My cockatiels have been enjoying their new digs for a little over two weeks now.  I even got Tweety to come back and forth from the rope perch to the branch perch close to me.  Back and forth he'd go at my command...and then he'd bob his face sideways whenever I'd tell him he was a good boy for coming to me.

This is Tweety at the far end of the new digs last Saturday.  

That made me really happy.  I think that despite this extremely warm summer heat, I'm gonna have a nice summer!

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Two Birds, Two Thoughts, Tuesday

It's Tuesday again and if you're a regular visitor on my blog you may already know what that means. That means it's time for a Top Sites Tuesday post contribution to BlogDumps.  It's the blogging community unlike any other!  Check out the fun blogs to read and if you blog, please share your site with the community.  The more the merrier, I say!

This week, I thought I'd share a little something about my new birds - two cockatiels I got last month from a lady from Norfolk, Virginia. My sister found her listing on Craigslist. Before this, I had never checked out anything on Craigslist.  But my sister forwarded me this lady's ad which included two pictures of her birds and I could not stop thinking about them, especially after all the fun I had at the Bird Show on Mother's Day.   I thought about it really hard. We already have a dog and two cats for our family. So would I really want to adopt two birds?

Tinkerbell on the swing and Tweety on the perch.

Well I did my research about cockatiels (thank goodness for the Internet!) and finally decided that I couldn't I pass up this opportunity.  Besides that, they also came with their beautiful cage which had colors that perfectly matched my living room/dining room decor.  To me, that was a sign!  So I went for it and got in touch with the lady who posted the ad.  After two days, my sister (a more experienced bird owner than I) helped me pick them up.

Next thought - I still plan on sewing a nice red skirt for the stand.  Something to match my red and white curtains would be perfect!  I've already got the material and thread.  Now off to designing the patterns for the skirt...

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Week-end Fun

So did everyone get to enjoy this past week-end?  It was Mother's Day yesterday...where were you?

I was out having fun with my mother!  Actually we spent the two days of the week-end going to a few different places.  The most exciting place we went to was a bird show on Saturday.  We (my mother, my sister, my daughter, and I) got to see some really beautiful exotic birds.  There was even a competition going on in part of the convention center.  There, we "talked" to some birds...and then their humans, too.  LOL!

It was really fun!  There were some raffle drawings going on for bird-related toys and books.  We didn't win anything but we did manage to find a few good buys on crafts and bird food. 

The experience made me recall the time I once owned a bird - a Quaker parrot to be exact.  I didn't have him for very long because I didn't have any experience taking care of birds a the time.  I ended up giving him up to a friend's friend who was a real bird aficionado.  Before I gave "Pete" up, I did manage to teach him to say a few things like "Good boy, Rambo" and the familiar bird phrase "Pretty bird".  (Rambo was my German Shepherd mix whom I loved and cared for for 13 years).

We spent Mother's Day together as well, having a nice late lunch at my house, then going out again to shop.  Yes, you can't beat shopping with Mom!  Hope you all had a nice Mother's Day week-end as well!

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