Bowie was a bit clingy today

 

This is Bowie with her friend Charlie the plastic bird.  For some reason Bowie has wanted to be with me a lot today and has spent most of the evening on my lap playing with the ribbons on my dress and pulling Charlie around.  Although she's only a young bird, we are making big steps in our bonding process and more and more she is getting comfortable being around me. We have had a couple of biting episodes but they were nipped in the bud and she has been very pleasant all evening.  I doubt that she will be very happy at the moment though as my son is downstairs watching his choice of tv programmes as his tv remote is broken upstairs so she'll have to put up with his company instead of bedding down for the night.

 

IN OTHER NEWS

 

Dad has had his hearing aids fitted and all is now right with the world.  I have already noticed the difference in his demeanour, he is much more softly spoken again and seems less angry than normal.  It was a pleasure to visit him today, long may it continue.

Bowie's day was loooooooooooong!

 

This is the gym that I made for Bowie out of an old clothes airing rack that had seen better days.  I split some colourful drinking straws and put them on the rails, hung toys from the front, put some wooden perches on and made a bead necklace that stretches over.  In this particular picture, I'd been cutting up baking parchment circles so the remaining paper was draped over the frame, she loves to nibble at it and push it off the gym.  Underneath is an old tv box which catches any bits.  She has spent hours today playing and re-organising things.  It was almost 10pm before she was put to bed because she was having such a good time.

 

IN OTHER NEWS

 

Every year I promise myself that I won't get sucked in to watching Big Brother and once again, it's too late to save my sanity .............. I'm hooked!

Who couldnt love this little face?

Isn't she gorgeous?  It's been so hot these last few days that Bowie has been enjoying cooling showers from a spray bottle.  Not sure if the timing is right cos she seems to have just undergone a summer moult, but she loves them.  Bowie is out all day playing, she is such a busy little thing, she swings on the swing and chews the rope that is on it, she gets on the play gym and rearranges everything, and she spends time in the wall box with a pot elephant that she seems to think is her boyfriend.  She keeps busy for hours and never seems to run out of energy and just have a nap.  However, she goes to bed after tea time and is left alone until 10am each morning so she gets plenty of rest.

 

IN OTHER NEWS

 

 

These are the buns that I made for watching Wimbledon men's final day.  They were scrummy and just the ticket to get me through the stress of such a terrific game.  Well done Andy Murray, you deserve everything coming your way after working so hard for it.

 

Bowie gets a pedi

Well, we emptied Bowie's cage so that she couldn't bump into anything, held a box over the gap where the food bowl goes and got her into it.  She squawked all the way to the vets, and all the way back for that matter.

I explained to the vet that although Bowie is very finger friendly and will step up happily, she's not used to being held so I thought that she might bite.  Sure enough Bowie bit the vet who then let go of her and she flew around the surgery.  I asked her to step up which she did, but she wasn't having any truck with the vet, eventually I suggested that the towel be laid on the table, and I put her gently onto it and the vet quickly wrapped her up in it.  She bit me a fair bit, but not nasty bites, and the vet quickly got the job done.  It was less stressful than I thought it would be, but the vet did draw blood on one nail and had to dab it with antiseptic.  It didn't bleed for long.

The vet suggested covering Bowie's cage for the afternoon and keeping her quiet, but I know that this would have freaked her out since I don't normally cover her at bedtime.  Within five minutes of getting home, she was out, sitting on her birdy gym and playing with all her toys as if nothing was amiss.  Good ol' Bowie hadn't let it phase her at all.  The best thing is that its only strengthened our bond as she is happy to come to me still.  It would have been horrible if she had developed a mistrust of me over this.  I will post a pic tomorrow as I am aware I haven't been photographing much lately.

Monday morning....

Quick update on Bowie.  We have an appointment for her to see the Vet on Wednesday for toenail clipping.  I have got two sizes of travel box to put her in for the short walk round to the surgery but I am not looking forward to the process of getting her in one of these boxes as I have never handled her before and she is bound to get upset cos she doesnt like being tickled or stroked.  Also, when we get to the surgery, what if she plays up for the vet?  Oh well, we can only wait and see.

Bowie learned this trick when she was very young

To do this at such an early age is a real achievement I think, I am very proud of my little buddy.  When Bowie goes off the screen, it is to collect her reward of millet seed.  I don't ask her to do this trick a lot, but its good to know that she will do it when asked.  It means that I can check her feet all around or her back if necessary from close up.  Also it helps with our bonding, I always tell her that she is a good girl and she responds well to that in other things too.  Today my Mum came to visit and she brought her dog along who is very young and boisterous.  Bowie got a little bit flustered at first but she soon calmed down when I told her that it was ok.

From an early age I have been associating food with the words yummy yummy, so Bowie knows that if food is on offer I'll say Yummy yummy and she can come and get something.  It also helps a little bit when introducing new foods.  Bowies first non seed treat was brocolli which she wasnt fond of, but Spinach came next and she loves that.  She will also eat lettuce and a little bit of boiled rice.  She is not bothered about butternut squash but I will keep trying her with it. 

Back to when Bowie was very young

 

This is a quick snap of Bowie at about two months old.  We were still getting used to each other, but at about this time Bowie learnt the first trick.  Using millet seed as a reward, I taught Bowie to turn around on my finger and get more millet as a result.  I simply said the words turn around at the same time that I made a circling gesture around the birds body to attract that circular movement.

 

Two things happened as a result 1. It was fairly easy to give the verbal command to turn around when Bowie was in the cage and on the perch, this was a real achievement. 2. Even today, if Bowie thinks I'm being tightfisted on the millet front, or not feeding it fast enough, a spontaneous 'turn around is likely to result'.  This makes me laugh, its so cute.

 

I have video somewhere of Bowie doing turn around, I'll try and look it up.  Since that first trick, I have taught Bowie to ring the bell in the cage, on the command 'ting ting'.  I genuinely believe that Bowie is a tremendously bright bird and is very quick to learn new things.  More next time.

 

I just thought that I would add a few thoughts from when Bowie was first in my home and the impact this little bird has had on me.

 

I went to collect Bowie from the petshop and the sales assistant said that she couldnt be certain but that she thought I was buying a male bird which is what I wanted because male birds tend to be easier to train to talk.  Well, that turned out not to be true on both counts but for the first four months of Bowies little life, pretty BOY was the order of the day.  In fact, after only three days of having the bird in our house, we clearly and distinctly heard the bird say 'pretty boy'.

 

I let Bowie stay in the cage for the first week, just to acclimatise to the new surroundings and get used to our voices and the sound of the tv and radio.  I was very careful when putting my hand in the cage to replenish food and water, and would sit with the cage next to me with my hand in the doorway but not going too near to Bowie in case of inadvertant startling.  Eventually Bowie learned to step up onto my finger in the cage.

 

I soon learned that Bowie would do anything for millet seed so getting Bowie to step up became easier and easier because bribery worked so well.

 

Not long after this, I decided to let Bowie out of the cage to allow flight up to a couple of shelves in the room that I had made bird friendly.  Surprisingly, Bowie 'stepped up' when required to go back to the cage.  Bowie seemed to enjoy being free to fly and sit up on the high shelves and explore this new world.  I was happy at this stage, although Liam seemed to get nipped fingers a lot if he went to collect Bowie but that soon altered.  This picture depicts Bowie's love of seed, and my increasing pleasure at being a bird Mommy!

Mad ramblings of a new budgie owner.

I got a budgie for Christmas.  My Mom got her for me, and she's a real cutie.  Originally we thought that she was a boy budgie and its really weird getting used to calling her a she.  But she's a lovely bird and we are bonding and learning how to live together, so I thought I would start up a new blog highlighting her exploits.