Unfortunate News

Manzi didn't make it. Last year I went through one of the most difficult times of my life. It is a long story:

The second half of 2019 and first half of 2020, Manzi didn't like me. He turned against me about 6 months after falling in love with Maui. I still wanted to put him in the outdoor aviary during the day, cause both he and Maui loved it out there. So I tried various techniques and finally was able to train Manzi to go into a carrier, so then I could put him outside without loosing any chunks of skin. This worked very well for quite some time. Manzi slowly started to trust me again and realized I wasn't trying to get in between him and Maui. After nearly a year of using the small carrier cage, Manzi started not wanting to step up to it. Finally, I decided to try using my hand again and he hopped right up. Like he was telling me I could trust him again. 

It was a big relief and I started carrying the birds out in my hand again. Then, Manzi was able to find a weakness in the aviary and escape one day. He didn't go far and stayed really close by. He hadn't free flown in many years, so he was pretty nervous. He stayed out overnight (which worried the heck out of me), but the next morning flew back down to me and was happy to be back with his Maui. 

I reinforced the aviary and fixed the problem. Things were really good at this time and we were a pretty loving threesome again. Well, Manzi was still skeptical of me and wouldn't let me do much more than scratch his head, but he wasn't trying to attack me. Maui stayed her loving self. They were really happy together too, which was absolutely adorable to see. Often preening each other and whistling together.

Then, in September, as I was bringing the birds to the aviary, I tripped and Manzi was startled and flew off. I usually hold them tightly by their feet, but that morning, I switched hands and didn't hold them quite like normal. So Manzi was able to fly away. I wasn't too concerned cause I figure he'd be back soon. I spent all day looking for him though and didn't spot him even once. Usually, when he's flown off, he's constantly calling to me letting me know where he's located.

By the following day, I was in panicked mode as I still couldn't find him anywhere. I printed flyers, posted everywhere I could find and spent the next week outside, biking around the neighborhood as much as possible. I have three kids now, but my husband took over kid/household duties, while I went out, usually three hours every morning, a couple hours at lunch and then another three hours in the evening. I printed a couple hundred flyers and started getting tips. Surprisingly, 3 other African Greys were found in the local area within just 4 days. None of them turned out to be my guy. The first one, I thought for sure it must be my baby, cause who else would have a grey in the area that just happened to be lost at that time? Unfortunately, it wasn't my guy.

Once, I was calling "MANZI!!" and I heard an African Grey chirp up. I thought I found him and after about 15 minutes, I finally spotted the Grey. It was in a cage in someone's backyard. I knocked on the door and they told me they have a Grey. They were very suspicious of me and I of them. From their point of view, how did I know they had a Grey in their yard? I looked through the fence and saw it, but why was I looking through their fence? 

They were really nice though after I told them I lost my boy, Manzi. Theirs is named Monty, so very close names and that's probably why he kept calling back to me when I called out, "Manzi." I asked if I could see him up close just to be sure that he really wasn't my Grey. I know that can be very insulting cause basically I'm saying that I don't trust that they didn't steal my guy, but I wanted to be sure. They said they'd do the same thing though. Up close, I immediately knew it wasn't Manzi.

One day, I even got a call from someone offering to give me their Grey cause they couldn't handle her anymore. I didn't want another Grey though, I wanted my Manzi boy.

After a week, someone called with Manzi. It was an adult daughter visiting her parents a mile away from our house. The neighbors of her parents found a Grey and gave it to someone else. The daughter saw my flyers and figured I must have been worried sick, so she gave me the address of where they had given the Grey. 

I showed up at their house, and they were pretty nice about the whole thing. As soon as I called Manzi, even before seeing him, he immediately responded. I knew instantly it was him. They told me they had him for a few days already and he never made a sound, so they were surprised when he called to me. He was in a cage with food and water. I went to get him to step up, and he tried, but then fell over. He head rolled off to the side and my heart dropped. Something was seriously wrong with him.

I carried him home in a box and talked to him. He was so happy to hear me, but really scared. The people who had them said their dogs found him. He wasn't really bloody, but did have a wound on his head and seriously neurological issues. They didn't realize he had any issues at all and thought he was perfectly healthy, but they didn't have any experience with parrots.

I took Manzi went to an ER vet. All the regular avian vets had weeks' long waitlists. The ER vet said they had experience in avian medicine, but when I looked up their vets, none of them were certified avian vets. Manzi went downhill really quickly and within 12 hours couldn't support his head. The vets forcefed him formula and gave him subcutaneous fluids. After two days on antibiotics and anti-inflammatories, they said he wasn't getting any better and they wanted to keep him longer. I spoke with the staff and they said Manzi was completely terrified there and would scream any time they came near him. Due to Covid, they wouldn't let me see him either. 

I stayed in touch with another avian vet who wasn't local, but very helpful. Then, against the advice of the ER place, I decided to take Manzi home. When they brought him out to me at the ER vet, I broke down in tears. He was shaking so much, all dirty, and absolutely terrified. I figured if they had to forcefeed him to keep him alive and that he might die any time, I'd rather him be home with me and Maui. 

I gave him unlimited treats to try to get his weight back up. He had lost a lot of weight. I was able to mix in his medicine with the treats and he gobbled it up. That was the first he had eaten in a few days on his own as he wouldn't eat at the ER vet at all. I held him up to his water dish and he would drink too. I had a little dog crate that I lined with towels to keep him in. I set him next to his and Maui's normal cage and Maui and him would often be as close as possible to each other (just a few inches apart).

Manzi was incredibly flinchy when I brought him home from the ER. He couldn't stand up or hold his head up. I was pampering/babying him all day. Talking to him trying to encourage him to keep trying. Over the next couple weeks, he started to perk up a bit. He finally started gaining weight and was almost back up to his normal weight. He began to hold his head up too, albeit crookedly. He even started climbing around his new crate/cage. At this point, I had hope that he might have a full recovery. Even if he didn't at least he was back to whistling and happy, so my anxiety eased a bit.

A couple times per day, I would hold Manzi in my lap and scratch his head. He would completely relax and really enjoyed this. After having him distrust me for a year, it was really nice to be able to cuddle with him again and for him to trust me again.

Unfortunately, Manzi slowly grew weaker. It was like he was trying his hardest for maybe even a couple months, but the neurological damage weakened his muscles and he couldn't recover. By Christmas, he was going downhill again. I was feeding him a baby carrot every day, along with other veggies/fruit. On the 29th of December, his beak got stuck in a baby carrot and he just fell over, laying there. I was watching him, so I immediately pried his beak off. Then I kept feeding him some carrots, but I chopped them quite finely. I knew his beak getting stuck was a really bad sign. He had tried so hard, but he was getting weaker. He weight began to drop and after a couple more days, he stopped talking to me. 

The last two days of his life, I didn't put him down, except when I was sleeping. I held him in my arms, I was too scared and I was begging him to keep trying. He did try, but just couldn't anymore. My heart was completely broken. Manzi was my little sentinel and I loved him so very, very much. It has been several months, but I'm getting a lump in my throat just thinking about it again. 

Maui was pretty distraught at first too. She didn't speak for several days, which is not like her. Eventually, she started speaking/whistling again. Now we have a much quieter life. Maui is quite bonded to me, and closer to me than she's ever been. She's always loved me, but she's always had Manzi and her boxes.

People have asked if I will get another Grey or parrot. I don't think I ever will. Manzi was with me for 17 years. He went through so much with me and helped me get through so much. I had some really hard times in my life and he was always there for me, my companion, best little buddy and sentinel. He'll always be in my heart.

Look who have become friends!!

The birds have had their aviary over a year now. They love it. But just a few days ago, Manzi and Maui started both displaying mating behaviors toward each other. Over the past 10 years, they've tolerated each other, and from a distance enjoyed making noise together, but they've never shown any kind of affection.

I wish I could get a video of it, but when ever I get near, they stop and both turn their attention to me. Now they spend their time in the aviary preening each other, and hanging out. This has blown my mind!! I wonder if it is due to the time they spend together in the aviary during the day? And then the seasonal change bringing on mating behavior.

 Maui is also doing way better health wise than she was a couple years ago. She's back to even flying across the room to her cage, turning around midair, and being the boss of Manzi.

For the last 10 years that they've been together, they couldn't stand this close together without biting at each other's beaks. It makes me happy to see them being so sweet to each other!!

New Aviary

This past weekend my brother came over and we built an aviary for the birds outside. It is 14' x 9' x 9' tall. I just put some dowels in it today. I have seed and water dishes in it. I am installing a bird bath. I also bought a large roll of thick rope, but that won't arrive for another week. 

Often times Maui is the one who's afraid during moves, but she is the brave one in the aviary. She quickly stood on the perch, ate seeds and went to the water dish. Manzi just stood screaming, hanging onto the side wanting me to get him out. In this photo, Manzi finally calmed down enough to stand on a perch for the first time. He still won't eat in the aviary.

Maui is back and ready for summer

Maui had a tough year last year, but she's doing so much better. We bought a kiddie pool for the back yard, and I thought I'd let Maui have a bit of a swim. She was a lot more skeptical than I anticipated (she usually loves her baths). It may take a few tries before she splashes around in it on her own.

Last year I didn't think she would make it out, but slowly over many months, she began to perk up again. Now she's back to holding her ground with Manzi and bossing him around.

I was also afraid to take her outside because she is fragile and easily goes into seizures, but she did just fine. She was happy to play in the backyard and was very interested in all the songbirds. With Spring here, they are singing in full force and that seems to entertain my two.

Manzi is doing well. I've been taking him around more and eventually would like to let him fly around in the backyard. I still need to get him a lot more acquainted with the neighborhood so he doesn't get lost. I do notice the older Manzi gets, the less accepting of strangers he is becoming. He was my social guy, but he's becoming more and more hesitant to go to strangers. I don't know if that is age, or just because our life circumstances are changing, which affects all our interactions.

Birds doing well

Manzi and Maui are doing well. Maui has really surprised me. She's perked up back to her normal state (like she was over a year ago). She's gotten so feisty again that she's begun to challenge Manzi quite a bit and put him back in his place. A few days ago she bit his foot and chased him off when he was following her!

We have a new dog, Ella. She is not very interested in the birds. As expected, Maui absolutely hates her. Despite Maui feeling better, she's still not up for chasing after the dog. Instead, she just threatens her if the dog gets too close to her cage. I have had to save Ella from a nasty nose bite a few times already. Ella doesn't realize that Maui's beak can do serious damage. Ella is still just a puppy though. She is a Old English Sheepdog cross and supposedly has a very low prey drive, so she should be little threat to the birds. Despite that, I keep a very close eye on them if they are ever out together. Manzi on the other hand is pretty curious about Ella. He will get close to her to check her out, but luckily he does have some hesitations and stays somewhat cautious. After first he didn't want to go the ground when we brought Ella home, but he's already lost that fear and is fine flying down the hall (the one he likes to protect). Ella isn't allowed down the hall though and if Manzi isn't down the hall, he's out of Ella's reach. So for the most part, Ella just ignores Manzi.

Here's a photo of Ella and Hercules:

Birds and Baby are Safe (from each other)

Our baby can now crawl and she is fascinated by the birds. She constantly goes over to their cage, pulls herself up to standing and reaches for the birds. Manzi and Maui usually stay away from her, but if Maui is at the bottom of her cage working on her boxes, then she puffs up and aggressively tries to bite the baby.

This could result in a very bad situation all around. We have been blockading the cage, but that has been stressing out Manzi quite a bit. Maui seems to care less and still does her own thing, but Manzi will stay at the top, far corner as far away from the blockade as possible. Finally yesterday we bought some plexiglass and covered the bottom couple of feet of the cage with it. We attached it to the outside of the cage, so the birds can still climb around without problems. It took a $20 tool from harbor freight, $50 worth of plexiglass, and about an hour of time.

Our little girl can no longer put her fingers in the cage and the birds no longer have the ability to teach the fingers the power of a beak.



The birds did not appear to be bothered at all by the plexiglass. It is very clear so I don't think they even see much of it. Maui didn't like my husband attaching the zip ties, reaching inside her cage and she ran after him trying to keep his fingers away!

Maui has been doing great this week. She's hanging upside down as I'm typing this. She has been tearing up her cardboard vigorously and is standing nice and straight when perched.

Copying the baby

I was worried that the birds would copy our baby's cries. They never copied anything until recently. In general, they don't pay her much attention at all. But these last couple of months she began to notice them more and more. Last week, our girl who previously only made one sound, began to make a higher pitch "chirp" whenever she saw the birds. She began to try imitating them. She only made that noise when she saw them. Within two days of our girl doing chirps every time she saw the birds, the both Maui and Manzi began to imitate her "chirps". So the birds imitated our daughter's imitation of them. It is hilarious because now they make that noise when ever they see her. So that encourages her to make the noise even more.

I bought some new toys and toy parts to make toys for the birds. Manzi was particularly interested in this loofah-like toy. So interested in it that within a few minutes he began regurgitating for it (a common breeding behavior). Usually Maui is the only one that encourages her toys to scratch her neck, but with Manzi's new toy, he would take the bell in his foot and help it to scratch his neck.

Maui did not like her new toys as much. She loves yucca wood, but she ignored the rest of them.

Hercules is gaining weight fast. Here is a picture of him:

Those are the legs of a table that he is under, not a chair (just for some size comparison). He now weighs 45 lbs!

Visit from brother

My brother visited from out of town. He took a couple photos of the birds and wanted me to put them up on the blog.

Here is Manzi:

This is Maui on her food dish. You can see a recently chewed box at the bottom of her cage:

I think both birds are wondering what he is doing. I'm surprised they didn't really fluff up when he was taking photos. I had him and his wife give the birds treats. They are pretty good about doing their tricks for all visitors now.

Crazy Manzi

I was traveling again last week for work. When I got back, I let the birds out and Manzi immediately began flapping like crazy on his cage. Then he proceeded to fly around for the rest of the evening. While I'm away, he is not let out of his cage, so he has a lot of built-up energy. It was a bit of a rough weekend with him. I feel bad for him being locked up while I'm away, but I also get tired of him flying around getting into constant trouble.

I think we need to do a better job at giving him "safe" places where he is allowed to fly and destroy. I will order many more toys tonight and buy an extra play stand for him. Then I can outfit his stands with toys that hopefully peak his interest.

Maui is doing better today. She did enjoy getting her scratches when I got back. She has still been maintaining her weight and she is even standing up since I've been back. While I was away, I video chatted and saw the birds. One day she was a bit hunched, but then perked back up the next day.

Update on Maui

Maui's having her good days and her bad days. She is still having more good days than bad days, so that is positive. On her good days, she can climb around her cage and even go to the bottom and work on shredding her boxes. On her bad days, she just hangs onto her perch all day with her head drooping down. Those days, I bring her water every couple of hours.

She is getting slower and slower climbing around her cage. She now has a pretty pronounced limp in her right leg. She stopped preening her tail and in general doesn't preen much anymore, so her feathers are getting quite ruffled. She's not plucking, but not taking the care that she used to. Despite all that, Maui is maintaining her weight. As long as I bring her food on her bad days, she'll eat just fine. She's a bit thin, but no serious weight loss. Her being thin has been a gradual thing over the last couple years. She is about 20 grams below what she weighed 7 years ago when I first acquired her. So that's not too bad.

Manzi seems to know she's struggling. They used to beak spar nearly every day, but now Manzi leaves her alone and she doesn't antagonize him either. They will still whistle together, but Maui doesn't have the energy to fight with him and Manzi knows it and respects her space.

Maui is my little geriatric Grey. She's still very loving and loves getting her neck and head scratches. She doesn't chase around my husband anymore, but she doesn't have the energy. Now she is just happy to sit on my lap while we're watching a movie and get scratches. She'll enjoy this for as long as I am willing to scratch her.

Manzi is doing really well. He's adjusting to his new space and not getting into too much trouble. I want to buy some new perches so he has more safe places to land around the house. Also, with our little girl getting more mobile, it will be nicer to keep him higher up and out of her reach.

Maui's aging :(

Maui hasn't been doing well lately. Last month, she began to really slow down. I noticed that she was climbing around her cage quite slowly. A few days later, she could hardly stand up and by the end of the day, she couldn't stand. It was terrifying to see her on her perch, with her wings resting on the perch and her head dangling down as she was unable to hold it up. Surprisingly, Maui maintained her weight. I just had to hand feed her and bring her water every two hours or so. She stayed really chirpy and making noise until this day as well. I rushed her off to a nearby avian veterinarian. They took a blood sample and x-rays and ran all kinds of tests. In general, the outlook is pretty gloomy. She doesn't have anything that really stood out to cause her sudden downturn. Instead, everything just looked bad. She has arthritis in both her knees and hips, which is probably making it difficult to stand. She has chronic lung issues, which has weakened her lungs over the years. Her heart, spleen and kidneys are enlarged. Nothing showed up wrong with the blood tests. The vet said she is on the thin side. I have been weighing her religiously for years now. I have noticed that she's dropped about 30 grams, but that was over the course of the last 1.5 years. I try giving her extra treats, but nothing seems to get her weight up. Instead, I figure this is just a new normal for her. The vet sent me home with pain medication and vitamins for her. I thought she wasn't going to make it, but within another couple days, Maui perked back up. She's back to standing and climbing around her cage, albeit slowly. She still has days where I see her slumped over more so than normal, but nothing as bad as that first day. The vet wanted to take biopsies of her lungs and so on, but I called it quits with that. Maui really struggled at the vets. She's way more sensitive than she used to be and she screamed almost the entire time there. Then when I got home, she napped the entire rest of the day. Also, if she is in bad shape, I think biopsies are too intrusive and more than she'd be able to handle. After talking with the vet about this, she did agree. I want Maui to be happy and healthy, but I don't want her on a whole bunch of medication that may not even be helping her. For now, Maui is doing okay again, but she has her good days and her bad days.

Hercules' new home

So Hercules has been loving his huge new home. He has 3000sqft of yard (currently growing clover, fescue and bermuda grass, dandelion and other weeds), and he has this 3' x 4' enclosure. The enclosure is fully insulated (ground, walls and ceiling). We have it heated for the cold nights. It took him 3 days to figure out how to go through the flaps. We pushed him through each day initially, but now he is quite confident and content in his new place. We added a removable wall (that is also insulated) so we can more easily clean out the mess he makes inside his house. The removable part is what the handles on the left side are for. It does get muddy, so we elevated it off the ground with some cinder blocks and then made a long ramp. It took the better part of 3 days to build this home, but hopefully it last many, many years. It is very solid and it took two people to carry it in four different pieces to its final location. We don't plan on moving it any time soon. It works well being positioned on the side of the house to protect from winds. He has free access to the back yard at all times. 

Despite the larger yard, he still patrols the fence regularly looking for weak spots!

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.

Maui in distress

Maui has been exhibiting this odd/distressed looking behavior since I first got her. It is very infrequent though, only about once per month or less. Anyway, I was finally able to capture it on video (this is really difficult because it is so short lived and so infrequent). The vet said she is fine (old, but otherwise okay). Her blood levels didn't show any surprising levels.

If anyone has any idea about the video, let me know.

An update on the birds:
Manzi and Maui are doing well. They are both enjoying a lot of me time, but my life has been busy. We have a move coming up in the next 1.5 months. The birds will get a much larger space. Our house will be over double in size. Their large cage will go in the main living area and we will finally build them the aviary that I've always wanted to build them. The new place has a concrete slab in the back where a shed is kept. I am thinking of removing that shed and building the aviary on top of that. It will make cleaning easy since I'd be able to just hose it off. Still, the house also needs a lot of work as well, so it may be several months before we get to the aviary.

It took the birds quite some time to adapt to this place and neither of them ever got comfortable with the second level. I'm hoping that they will adapt just fine to the new place. It is all one floor, which I am really happy about, so they will have an easier time exploring. We are not putting in any carpet, which will give me some peace of mind about Maui's wanderings.

We have had quite a bit of visitors and Manzi is still pretty eager to entertain. Last week he was flying to a visitor's hand taking treats from him. Maui does not go to visitors, but she will allow women to scratch her head (Manzi doesn't often allow strangers this).

We are currently surrounded on all sides by dog owners. After a full year of not imitating the dogs, our neighbors brought home a puppy. It is pretty cute, and now both birds torment the poor puppy, copying his puppy barks multiple times throughout the day. When the puppy is in the patio adjacent to the birds, the birds will began barking, causing the puppy to bark like crazy. They all continue on for several minutes until the neighbors bring the puppy inside. It is amusing (for me at least).

Hercules Digging

This past week Hercules has taken to digging. I only have an 8" planter, so he cannot get very far.

I tried getting a video, but as soon as I approached him, he'd stop kicking the dirt up. He's been growing great, really enjoying the west coast sun and warmth.

We had visitors for the past 10 days. Visitors mean the birds are not free to roam the house, so they are a lot more confined, but there is also a lot more chatter among the people, which invariably leads to a lot more chatter among the birds.

The first evening after the visitors were gone, the birds were in the house in the evening and Maui was roaming around. She took to following my husband quite closely for a couple of hours, scurrying as fast as her little legs would go as soon as he got up to go anywhere. It was pretty cute. We're still very unsure of her intentions. She doesn't act aggressive, but she doesn't ask or accept scratches from him either. She seems intent on just staying within a foot or two of him, watching him.

With Spring coming on, Maui has also been shredding her boxes at full force. I keep boxes in her cage because it keeps her entertained, but every day there are piles of shredded cardboard at the bottom of her cage. Manzi is not nearly as interested. He'll glance down at Maui, then maintain a higher perch, playing with his toys, or just preening himself.

Exercising with Manzi

I have been in a new exercise group, but had to miss it yesterday. So I asked the leader to send me the exercises to do at home. It was legs day, so it involved a lot of squats and jumps. Manzi was hanging out nearby watching me quite intently. After many quick squats, Manzi took it on as a challenge and began head bobbing himself, moving his whole body up and down. It was really cute. He kept it up with me for nearly 10 minutes, making a lot of noise along with it.

After "we" finished, he went back to quietly preening himself.

Maui and Manzi are doing really well during the day time. Manzi is still a lot more energetic and gets into a lot more trouble than Maui, but that is not unexpected! They have also adjusted to having my husband in the house in the evenings. Maui will still occasionally fly after him (maybe once every two weeks), but Manzi completely ignores him. Things have changed though. 

We have a new roommate temporarily (for a few months, ending in two weeks). The roommate loves the birds, especially Maui. Usually Maui loves women, but in the evenings, both birds have been worked up. Starting two weeks ago, Manzi has begun flying after the roommate. This gets Maui worked up. Maui used to let the new roommate scratch her while sitting peacefully. Now it is chaos time in the evenings. Because of this, their schedules have changed. Now, both birds are now spending a large portion of the day inside with me. Maui will often want to go outside, but likes to come in for a while to get scratches. Manzi is half and half. If I am too boring inside, he'll want to go outside. 

Our roommate works really late, so the birds stay inside until she gets home, then I either put them outside for another hour, or just put them to bed. It probably doesn't help that she loves to give them treats. That is what prompted Manzi to fly after her to begin with. They know that when she gets home they are going to get treats. They get so worked up about it!!

Artichokes

Turns out that the birds love artichoke. I was eating it a couple days ago and Manzi flew to the table to check it out. I handed him a leaf and he loved it. I gave him several more.

Maui is usually more picky than Manzi. She will eat a lot, but sometimes I struggle to get her to try things whereas Manzi will try anything. Despite that, when I gave Maui artichoke, she loved it as well.

The following day, I tried some with Hercules. He wasn't quite a keen as the birds, so I gave him only half and gave the birds each a quarter. The birds quickly went through the artichoke.

In this picture, Maui only has one leaf left and finished the heart already:

Manzi usually eats faster, but he was more thorough than Maui, so he still has a way to go with his section: 

Attack of the killer balloons

Yesterday I had a party at my place. One couple brought their 10-month old daughter. She was interested in the balloons at first, until her dad bounced a few nearby. Then she panicked and was scared to death of the balloons after that, wanting to be held the rest of the time.

I left the birds in their cage, as usual when a group of people are around. After everyone left, I brought the birds in. They were just as terrified as the little girl. It didn't help that they both began flapping frantically. Then the balloons moved with the current created by the flapping. Which made the whole situation even more terrifying. Maui, once she made it safely to my hand, kept a death grip on my poor hand. Manzi came to me, but when I went near a balloon he abandoned ship and flew towards the closet where he sleeps. I opened the door and he ran in. I've never seen him so eager to get to bed.


It seems that I have a couple of pansies for birds. My husband pointed out that their fear of balloons is not unlike mine of spiders. Maybe he has a point.

Update

The New Year has been hectic. I've slacked off flight training, but even after missing a couple weeks, we had a great session today. Both Manzi and Maui did many flights. Manzi was tempermental/stubborn at first and didn't feel like doing his flights. When he doesn't want to fly, he puts his head down and bites at his perch. When that happens, an easy fix is to go to Maui. She was perfectly happy to do her flights. After two of them, Manzi was begging me to let him fly to me. He knows he doesn't get a treat if he flies without be called. So he will hold his wings out, looking at me waiting for me to call him. Then he does show Maui up by bolting straight to me.

I have been impressed by Maui's flights. She can do 5-6 of them. She is still having to make lots of conscious, mid-air corrections (like accidentally going to high, then slowing her flapping to lower down, or over/under shooting my hand by a couple inches). Manzi doesn't do that at all, but when I did ask him to fly down, he missed the landing and then wouldn't even try again. I need to work with him at that. We have stairs, which is the perfect place to practice.

Hercules is doing well. His grass patch is growing and he is loving the sunny days. Southern California is a better location for him and the birds, weather-wise, than the Twin Cities.

Beach Flying

So far, beach flying has been unsuccessful, due to operator error. We've only been twice, but I still have a lot of hope. The first flight was fantastic. Manzi did some loops, never hit the end of the line, then circled nicely back to me for a light landing. I was very hopeful. The fishing line got a bit tangled, but that was because I wasn't sure how to use it with a flying bird.

After fixing the line, I sent Manzi out again, but this time he bee lined away from us. With the fishing reel, it no longer snaps him and instead slows him down at the end, so he landed nicely in the sand. I called Manzi back, but he didn't come back and instead stood in the sand angrily biting his foot leash. We sat down, but after about 10 minutes I went towards him. Then he did fly to me.

I went back a few days later. This time when I first released Manzi, he bee lined away from us and then landed in the sand 80 yards away. I went and got him and tried again. This time he did a half circle, but then flew away again. I was irritated with him, so we left him a long ways off and hung out waiting. I didn't want Manzi to learn that he can just fly away and expect me to come get him. After about 20 minutes, I went to get him. As I approached him, I was horrified and seeing that he did unclip his leg leash and was sitting about a foot away from it. He happily came to me and I reclipped it.

Okay, so here's a major error:
Manzi has lost his confidence, due to my over expectations. I had him do more technically difficult flights by expecting him to circle around and land on me. The beach is breezing, new, with lots of seagulls and other birds. He's never been in that environment, so he is afraid. I expected Manzi to be as good as before, when he used to free fly, but it has been 4 years, so he needs to build up the muscle, manueverability and confidence.

We'll go back to the beach, but next time I'll only do a few a - b flights. Then do that for a few days before asking for higher difficulties, like turns and circles.

Update on Maui:
She's been doing well. She enjoys the outside cage a bit more than Manzi. At first, they both loved being outside, but now the novelty of it has worn off. So they still spend a lot of the day inside. I did get Maui a permanent, large bath in the outside cage, so she does bathe every day in it. Manzi has yet to pick up on that habit. I also supply Maui with all the boxes she can handle outside so she also spends at least an hour or so shredding those. Yesterday, in addition to shredding outside boxes, she went inside and wandered over to Manzi's sleeping cage. Then she spent an hour inside shredding up his newspaper for him (he isn't interested in shredding boxes/newspaper). Now both their sleeping cages have nicely shredded bedding.

Lastly, we bought one of those yucca wood toys for the birds. They loved that, but only for 30 minutes or so until it was completely gone. I would like to find yucca wood to make my own toys out of it, without paying an arm and a leg. If anyone has ideas, let me know. The bulk ones sold online are for parrots and likewise are ridiculously marked up.
They do have a treasure chest my sister sent me a few years ago. I've been putting treats in it and that has also kept them really occupied. I may get another one of those because they often fight over the one in their outside cage.