Chipper

Finally! Got a photo to post! This is Chipper. When we first bought him, we thought he was a Budgie. Apparently the pet store also thought so, because they charged us the Budgie price. But our vet said no, he is a Bourke's Parrot. They are the size of a Budgie, and they are that color. They come from Central Australia. In this photo, he is sitting on the back of a dining room chair. If you look closely at the feathering at the base of his neck, you will see they look a bit mottled, which is not Budgie feathering. Also the tip of his tail is more squared off, while that of a Budgie comes almost to a point.

Chipper is not tame, though he gives me almost no trouble at all. Sometimes he wants to get into Pepper's cage, but more about that another time. Initially we tried to finger train him, but he would have none of it. So he is just let out of his cage in the morning so cleaning, food and water can be done, and he flies around the dining room - living room - kitchen circle two or three times, and then he ends up on the end table (appropriately enough). After a while he will fly back up to his cage and generally spend the rest of the day there.

Two weeks ago there was a workman in the house, and when he moved from the kitchen into the hall, Chip flew around the opposite direction, almost colliding with the man. Chip veered away, and ran head on into the wall. I took him to the vet, who examined him, noted that the bird's feet were curled when Chip was on the ground. The vet said to keep him caged for a couple of weeks. He also said to see if the bird was eating properly, and so far that is the case. But although one foot appears to be flat on the ground when he is on the floor of his cage, the other remains curled. I have a call into the vet. I'll keep you posted.

At my request, Rena emailed me on how she was able to post her comment. Perhaps this will help some of you: "Didn't do anything special - just clicked on leave comment or whatever it says and left my comment - thought maybe you had whatever was wrong fixed. Will go there again and see if it works. It does, it just takes a little bit to get finished. One clicks on comments 2 now, then writes there comment, at the bottom, click on select profile - where one has to sign in according to the type of passwork one has - google, typepad etc. One also has to write the silly computered generated work to keep zombies from attaching to it."

Ok, now for a bit of humor. Sometimes what happens in real life is funnier than something made up. The following is part of a front page article in this morning's paper entitled PUBERTY:

Her paper white teeth disappeared behind braces that stretched from ear to ear. At 11 she was accustomed to wearing the first thing that tumbled out of her closet in the morning; at 13 she now presides over a vast wardrobe of color coordinated wardrobe of adorablewear. Most of these ensembles she prefers to keep where she can see them, on the floor of her bedroom.

Tomorrow: Pepper