Owls

This post is a bit off topic. I was on a walk yesterday (here in Brasilia, Brazil) and I saw a cute family of owls. They consisted of two parents and two babies. The top two are the baby owls and the bottom is one of the parents. The other parent was perched up above. The babies were running around on the ground (trying to keep up with the parent) and when they would trip, they spread their wings and I could see they still had quite a bit of fluff.

On the other side of the road was another pair of owls. One was perched on the fence and the other was camouflaged in the dirt (I didn't zoom in to show how they camouflage quite well). Both were angry with me taking pictures and were bobbing their heads (like Manzi does to threaten people) and screaming. Finally, one began diving at me and I decided it was time to go. The owls are tiny little things. I think they are burrowing owls like what we have in Davis, CA.

I've hit the Jackpot

So the past two days because of the elections race (especially Proposition 8 in Ca) and other stuff, I've been watching kids for various friends. ALL the kids that came over LOVED Manzi. They ALL wanted to feed him a treat and hear him talk. Manzi seemed to be loving the attention and was not acting aggressive or overwhelmed with all the children- so I let them feed him his favorite treat. Almonds! Thus, in the last 48 hours I think Manzi has had about 20 almonds! (Keep in mind I only give him two a day at the most.) I think that Manzi caught on really quick that having kids come to visit is a really good thing. He even opened up and started saying "hello." The kids thought that was the best!

Some of Manzi's visitors.

Kids trying to get Manzi to say hello.

(The boy in the black shirt stood in front of Manzi's cage for almost an hour trying to get Manzi to keep saying hello.)

Gabriel loves to give Manzi treats.

Manzi taking a treat from one of the little visitors.
(BTW- that's dye not blood on her hands.)

Manzi enjoying his favorite treat.

Adele? Adele?

I think Manzi is officially starting to miss Adele. Why do I think this? For the past three days or so- every morning as I'm brushing my teeth and he hears that I'm awake, I hear Manzi calling from his cage, "Adele, Adele."
He must feel disappointed when he sees me instead of her!

Cleaning Cages

I decided to clean the Azul's and Manzi's cages today- scrub their droppings off their cages, etc. I knew that Manzi wouldn't be to happy with me poking around his safe place. I tried to be nice by giving him a treat and opening the top of his cage before I started the cleaning process. I was hoping that he would be distracted with his treat and just ignore what I was doing. No such luck! As soon as he saw the sponge that I was using to clean his cage with- he was too curious to even eat his treat! I couldn't believe it. The whole time he was poofing and trying to get at the sponge. Since he was not interested in his treat, I brought out the water bottle hoping that the threat of being sprayed with water would make him stop trying to get the sponge. No such luck it made things worse. He started saying, "Watch it Man" over and over again. Finally I gave up and decided that cleaning half of his cage was good enough.
Then I started to clean Azul's cage and had it open while I was scrubbing the bottom- she immediatly took advantage of the cage being open and flew onto Manzi's cage. We don't let Azul climb on Manzi's cage anymore. Manzi no longer has any tolerance for Azul. He immediatly tried to bite her through the bars. Luckily I was close enought to pull Azul off of Manzi's cage.
On another note, Manzi got to see Cesar on Thursday. He hasn't seen Adele or Cesar for over a month now. I really thought that Manzi would be happy to see Cesar. I was wrong. He just poofed and only let his head get scratched. I guess he's not that lonly yet!

Getting Better

I found out that James (Aida´s husband) has taken over the feeding duties to get Manzi to behave better around him. James told me that when Manzi threatens him (by puffing up, etc.) while he is feeding him, then he just doesn´t give Manzi his food right away. It has been working great because now Manzi sees James as a good thing and realizes that his threatening gestures don´t get him what he wants. I also heard that Manzi is being much better around their son. Manzi still continues to be let out, but he needs constant supervision while out because he still gets into trouble (biting the blinds, etc.).

By the way, here in Brazil I saw a flock of Amazons the other day. I wish I had my camera (it is coming in 12 days). The Amazons were so loud and they were very playful; tumbling and hanging upside-down from branches. I will post pictures when possible.