Settling in

We have been through a lot of changes in the past few months. We bought a house and moved. We also had a baby. So the birds have been going through quite a bit.

Maui was great with the movers and the workers in our new house. She is much more watchful than Manzi. I've been covering Manzi some times when he gets too scared of the workers and begins to panic. Most of the work is done now though, so things are settling down. Maui often takes longer to adjust, but she is less spastic than Manzi. So Manzi will totally freak out, flapping all over the place for some new things (like the washer being moved into the new place), but then he will be the first to go over and check it out. Often, his checking out new items is quite amusing because he puffs up his feathers so much to look more intimidating. Either way, a 200lb appliance is much larger and much less intimidated than Manzi likes to think.

Maui on the other hand, she is watchful of everything without panicking, but she is perfectly content to wait for weeks or months before she deems something "safe" and no longer a threat. Sometimes, if I don't push the issue, she will never allow an item off of her "scary/threat" list. So with her, I've been taking her around the house showing her that everything is alright and that she should make herself at home. Just last night, she felt enough at home that when my husband was too close to her cage, she did threaten his feet! Still, she's been keeping to herself here.

Due to a new baby, we have had a lot of visitors. The birds are loving it. They get lots of attention and lots of treats. I think the visitors are spoiling them, but I do like for them to see visitors as a good thing. They are both doing their tricks regularly for visitors. Maui will often began saying, "Work, work, work" when she sees a visitor, 'cause she knows it leads to a treat. Manzi will wave his foot "hi", spread his wings and turn around in quick succession to get treats.

Hercules has been doing great. He loves his huge backyard. We built him a more permanent home, with insulation and a heater (it does get somewhat cold in southern california at times). It took him three days to learn to go through the hanging flaps into his house, but once he figured it out, he is always in his home before dark and doesn't come out until he sees the sunlight.