Coming in for a Landing! One Week of Flying with Kai and Lots of Poop.

Kai is progressing very nicely on learning to fly!  He's become more confident, but he's also become a little more territorial where his cage is concerned.  It troubles me a little that people say that you should clip their wings so "they have to depend on you".  They already depend on you for food, water, and companionship, that shouldn't necessitate mutillating their wings.

I had listened in on a presentation that a man was giving when he spoke of his raptor.  He mentioned that if he could never show fear, anger, or upset, or his raptor might lose confidence in him and possibly hurt him very badly.  He said that he would have to starve his raptor for a few days, because he was the one who controlled the food source, and then work on building his raptor's trust all over again.

That does make sense to me, in a way, though it isn't very kind.  Before anyone becomes upset at such treatment, I can't recall how many times I've heard of children being sent to bed without supper as a manner of discipline.  It's basically the same concept.  No one is going to die from not eating for a 12 hour period.  I don't recall being sent to bed hungry, though there were plenty of other times that I was starving, but had no access to food.  (Besides, if the kids are smart, they'll already have foxholed caches of food in their rooms, anyway, like I usually did!)

I would prefer to reward good behaviour rather than resort to punishment.  That being said, there is also a big difference between parrots and raptors.  Raptors are not affectionate; they learn that life with their master is a sure way to survive and depend upon them for food, shelter, and care.  In return, the falconer must trust that their raptor will return to them.  Parrots, on the other hand, are social birds, who are affectionate, and form strong bonds with their families. 

Would someone ever clip a raptor's wings?  No, of course not.  Raptors need to be able to fly to be physically and mentally healthy, and also to hunt.  Flying is what makes a bird so special and set apart from other species - there is no other animal (with feathers) which is capable of flight.  There is nothing as beautiful as a bird in flight, a butterfly fluttering from one flower to another, or a horse galloping across an open stretch of field (even if it's gleefully bucking and farting, ahem).  Flying promotes the best health they can be in by providing exercise as nature intended.  So why should anyone clip a parrot's wings and rob them of their flight?

I also feel strongly about other similar, related controversial issues, such as genital mutilation (circumcision), declawing, debarking, pinfiring, racing horses without closed knees,  ear and tail cropping, etcetera.  Why, for the love of children, would you do something like that to your helpless, vulnerable baby?  Why risk the slip of a scalpel, which accidentally severs the nerves which will later bring them pleasure and condemn them to a sexual life lacking sensitivity.  Why risk the doctor royally screwing up and severing the glans off completely?  Or how about a botched job and infection causing your son's penis to become necrotic and fall off, completely?   (It's happened....and it has been estimated that as many as 209 babies die every year from circumcision and related complications.)  I don't think I need to bring up MRSA.  Why risk mutilating and deforming a limb of his body, which will affect a large portion of his adult life later on?  I've seen some tragic examples due to botched jobs.  It isn't just their love life that's affected, it's their self-confidence, self-worth, and self-esteem.

Why would anyone surgically remove the claw at the distal phalanx and cause them a remaining lifetime of insecurity, biting due to fear aggression and the inability to fight back, trauma, and chronic pain?  For those who don't believe declawed animals suffer, they have but to ask someone with an amputated limb if they can still feel it, or if they still feel pain, because of it.  The answer is yes, and much of the time, it's chronic and lasts for the rest of their lives.  With debarking, people remove their dog's natural ability to communicate, causing a wellspring of behavioural issues and detriment to the dog's well-being.  Why don't more people notice their animals are suffering?  They have higher pain thresholds than people, though their trauma generally manifests in unfavourable behaviour, such as bite aggression, marking, excessive licking/plucking, and other self-mutilating examples.

That being said, it stands to reason that a parrot is also affected on many levels, not just physically, but also mentally. 

I found a site that has good information on it.  Also:

http://www.parrotchronicles.com/features/freeflight/freeflight.htm

http://www.flyingparrotsinside.com

I absolutely love and stand by the article written by Pamela Clark.

On a rather unsavory note, husband made the comment that, because Kai was flying from room to room, he thought it was time to clip him again.  I reasoned, "Well, then, we should cut off your cat's legs.  He doesn't need to play, tear around the house, or exercise, either..."  He said that his cat doesn't fly around the house like Kai does, and I said, "Have you never seen the cats running around the house before...?"

I have a long list of things that the cats have eaten, spilled, broken, damaged, or otherwise ruined in our house and past living spaces.  We buy furniture with the knowledge that it will become defaced by claws, covered in a veneer of shed fur every fall and spring, shredded, possibly peed and or pooped on/in, and otherwise made holey.  His cat not only mauls the couch corners to ribbons, but he also chews and eats the foam that comes out of it.  My cats poop in the bathtub, or on the kitty bathroom floor.  The bed has been christened numerous times when Ollie experienced blockage due to his bladder crystals, and twice when B's cat peed on it for no real reason at all.

My dog's stomach is extremely sensitive to treats and weather changes.  Quite often, if I'm not around, am sleeping, or if B ignores his pleas to go outside, my dog will go as far away as he can from either of us and do his business.  Then he'll run and hide... I've never so much as raised my voice at him for doing so, but he's always so ashamed and embarrassed that he did what he did where he did.  And my husband is worried about Kai flying around the house a little, occasionally pooping on stuff?  Let's compare poop size, shall we...?  This dog's head is also so insanely hard, once, he was doing his Husky 500, took the corner too fast, and ran straight into the steel wall corner reinforcement.  He was fine, but he BUCKLED the corner, broke through the drywall, and made a dent that was over an inch thick.  Boy did I spend a lot of time trying to disguise that one with tablespoons of spackle, my airbrush, and acrylic paint diluted with rubbing alcohol.  I also had to hammer the buckled part flat again on the other side.

My life revolves around cleaning up sh*t, literally and figuratively.  I've done it for years - since I was 4 or 5, at least, and we got our first cat.  It doesn't bother me, seriously.  Some day, if I have a baby, I'll be cleaning up its poop, too.  Hell, I'll make my husband do it!  It'll be a nice dose of reality and an actualization of responsibility for him.  Maybe it will make him more sympathetic to what I deal with on a day to day basis.  Dog poops on the carpet?  I just sigh and make for the paper towels and the green machine.  Every morning, I change Kai's papers.  Every couple of hours, I scoop the litterbox and flush the kitty poop.  Every day, I clean some part of the house.  It's routine, I'm used to it, it doesn't bother me - and B comes home, none the wiser to what I've done.  He just knows that dinner is almost ready, that he can change out of his work clothes and into his freshly laundered comfy pants, and that he should feed everyone just before we eat.  And yet, when Kai poops on the floor, he freaks out a little?

Pshhh.  I told him it was training for all the poop that'd come with a child.  He said kids wore diapers and eventually potty trained.  I just gave him a look.  I told him about my friend's daughter, who has taken to removing her diaper, scooping her feces, and flinging it downstairs at her mother, followed by her poop-filled diaper.  If he thinks kids won't potty in bizarre places (like outside in the yard, like the dog, in planters, on doormats, in litterboxes like the cats, etc), he's sadly mistaken.

Where damage is concerned, I also don't think my husband realizes that Kai seldom chews.  Compared to other species, it doesn't appear that Pionus really chew much at all.  He'll snap wooden disks and take apart vine balls, maybe chew his hanging wooden feeder box, but he's never really chewed aside from that.  I've been trying to teach him to forage through cardboard, but that's not going very well.  Besides, I don't think Kai could ever cause nearly as much damage as the cats. 

SO.  I'm really not worried about Kai being flighted.  I'm working on recalling him, but so far, he's only really mastered flying from my hand to his house, his perch, or to the faucet.  He knows the difference between stepping up for me to go somewhere, and stepping up for me to practice flying.

Me: Kai, let's go!
Kai: *looks at finger.* (Na, thanks.)
Me: Come on, Kai, let's go!  Do you want to go kitchen and help make dindin?
Kai: *disinterested stare* (Ehhhhhh....)
Me:  Hnn.  Well, Kai, let's go whee!  Do you want to go whee?
Kai: *eyes sparkling* (We're going to fly?)
Me: Come on, Kai, let's go whee to perch, okay?
Kai: *steps up immediately!!* (Okay!!!)

He has found the confidence to fly from my room into the kitchen, usually up onto the top of the fridge, but he has yet to figure out how to fly to me.  I can tippie-toe to get him off of high places, but I don't know what I'd do if he got up onto something higher than I could reach.  I don't shoulder him at all, because I like my face, ears, and earrings.  I hold my arm out at a right angle to my body with my finger pointed as he flies towards me, but he winds up flying right over me.  I guess it'll just take practice!  I'm still optimistic.

Please note that if I'm cooking with the stove on, Kai is NOT in the kitchen with me and all the kitchen doors are closed.  Kai gets to eat bits of fruit and veggies on the faucet as I'm doing the prepwork, but as soon as it's time to turn the burners on, Kai has to go to his livingroom perch.  I'm not going to risk burning my bird.  It helped that my mother would totally flip out if my sister or I ever stepped within two feet of the stove or oven while it was on.  Why was she so paranoid?  Well, when I was a toddler, apparently she had the oven open and I fell against the door and burned my arm.  Lesson learned!  Years later, I still maintain that lesson with all of my animals (and my husband.).  My kids, human or furry/feathered, will always be kept safe from hot things...I'm very cautious, considerate of my animals' needs, and am a responsible individual, who has an understanding of each of their distinct personalities and temperaments.

One thing that I have been having him practice is flying from his playstand to his house.  That's been going swimmingly!  A couple times, he's flown in circles around the room, which I found delightful, only to land on something awkward for him to stand on.  Tonight, he landed on a framed picture that I have leaning against the wall waiting to be hung.  He was nearly face-flat against the wall as he clung to the frame.  I resisted the urge to go get him, because I want him to learn that mommy isn't always going to rescue him.  I told him, "Kai, if you don't like it, you should go house.  Come on, you can do it!"  After a couple minutes of looking at me pathetically, he sucked it up and managed to turn himself a little, then launched and flew right to his house!  I cheered and praised him as he crowed about what a good boy he was, then I gave him his beloved sunflower seeds and aya (papaya).  He's always so pleased with himself when he flies and lands right.

So far, so good - he hasn't tried to dive-bomb my husband yet.  We'll see how he does during mating season.  I'm going to take pains to try to keep his hormones at low levels by limiting his light exposure (our house is dark, anyway!), not feeding him large amounts of meat protein/eggs, and by not encouraging mating habits.

While on the subject of behaviours, I tried something new with his territorial cage aggression.   He struts around on his house, all puffed up like a macho bird if B walks by, or if I'm changing his papers and cleaning his tray out.  The strutting while cleaning his tray out is a new behaviour I haven't seen until recently.  T.T  My little baby is growing up... So, anyway...I don't want to encourage him to be territorial and show signs of aggression like that.  Well, while eyeballing my little puffball, I open up his treat bin and pull out a handful of pumpkin seeds and exclaim, "Seed!!"

Kai went from aggressive to perky bird in half a second flat.  I was mightily pleased and dumped the pumpkin seeds into his dish so he could eat them while I finished cleaning his tray out.  It only seems like he has aggression if he's out on top of his cage, but not if he's inside.  If I close his drawbridge up and change his tray, he shows absolutely no signs of aggression.

On another note, I also might get a little flight suit for Kai so I can take him to other people's houses or to the store, but we'll see how that goes...if I have any skin left on my fingers after trying to get it on!  Okay, I should really sleep now, it's 9:12 am as I finish this up...I need to sleep sometime today!

What Parrots See!

Parrots must have an amazing world to look at, since they can see in the ultraviolet spectrum of light!

These bananas, for instance, are not just green and yellow, but the ripe ones show as a vibrant blue!  This helps them to figure out which bananas are ripe enough to eat. 

This is what parakeets look like to eachother!  It's incredible!


From Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_vision

"Ultraviolet
The Common Kestrel can detect the ultraviolet trail of its vole prey.

Birds can perceive ultraviolet light, which is involved in courtship. Many birds show plumage patterns in ultraviolet that are invisible to the human eye; some birds whose sexes appear similar to the naked eye are distinguished by the presence of ultraviolet reflective patches on their feathers. Male Blue Tits have an ultraviolet reflective crown patch which is displayed in courtship by posturing and raising of their nape feathers.[25] Male Blue Grosbeaks with the most, brightest and most UV-shifted blue in their plumage are larger, hold the most extensive territories with abundant prey, and feed their offspring more frequently than other males do.[17]

The bill’s appearance is important in the interactions of the Blackbird. Although the UV component seems unimportant in interactions between territory-holding male, where the degree of orange is the main factor, the female responds more strongly to males with bills with good UV-reflectiveness.[26]

A UV receptor may give an animal an advantage in foraging for food. The waxy surfaces of many fruits and berries reflect UV light that might advertise their presence.[17] Common Kestrels are able to locate the trails of voles visually. These small rodents lay scent trails of urine and faeces that reflect UV light, making them visible to the kestrels, particularly in the spring before the scent marks are covered by vegetation.[27] "

Peaches has also pointed out that Saw-Whet Owls also have bright pink underfeathers on their wings!  She wrote:

"hehe, there are porphyrins in their feathers that react to the UV light.  for a while, there was a theory that you could tell the age of the bird by the checking the brightness of the underwing, but we lit most of the owls 2 years ago, and there's no appreciable difference that we could see.  its been pretty much abandoned as an aging  tool, because when they molt, the new feathers are brighter anyway...  all right, enough rambling about owls for now :)"