Flock Dynamics

A blog about parrots, usually mine (two cockatiels and two pionuses, with occasional cameos from a blue crowned conure), but not always. Also sometimes about my crested geckos, and every now and again other animals that are cool. But usually parrots. Feel free to talk to me, I like having friends.

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Merry Christmas from my flock to yours!

[flockdynamics]

Apologies for being MIA! I’m both lazy and also have a new addition to the flock: meet Winifred (Winnie)! She’s a scotch collie puppy, and she came home with me just before Halloween. She is a lot but also so sweet. She and the birds mostly get along—occasionally Ichabod tries to come down and fight her when she’s scrounging for food under the pi’s cages, and then she is confused. But other than that they mostly ignore each other, which is ideal.

Christmas post coming soon!

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She is taking a “bath” in the air blowing from the fan...has there ever been a more distracting coworker???

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I take her in the actual shower, and she sits there confused and concerned and barely gets wet. I turn the vacuum on, and HELL YEA BATH TIME

I know this is a common thing with birds for whatever reason (the sound, I guess??) but for how smart they are, you really think they’d learn...

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Himb found the seebs!! Perhaps it’s unkind of me, but I was just waiting for him to topple it over. But he got down to inspect it more safely.

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Me: *solo quarantine dance party*

Gwen & Ichabod: 👀👀

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Me: *gives birds their daily evening fruits & veggies, Ichabod’s on top of Gwen’s cage where he hangs out*

Ichabod: *goes into his cage to eat the pellets that have been there all day*

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This is Keuka’s favorite place to sit. Usually she is yelling out the door for me to come back upstairs and pay attention to her.

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Their bed time is a little after 9, usually lkle 9:20. That’s when the light that’s on a timer for them goes off. But this boy has been putting himself to bed at like 8:30 every night. And if I don’t lock him in and cover them, he comes back out and yells.

He never had a problem with their bedtime before, so I’m not sure what the issue is...maybe my being around all day every day during this quarantine is just emotionally exhausting for him 😂

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Who do I contact about coworkers who are being disruptive and not respecting personal space

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Me: *sitting at kitchen table working on computer*

Birds, up ‘til now: *chilling, relaxing, afternoon nap time*

Ichabod, now: *chirruping gently*

Me: what nice gentle noises

Me: wait

Me: those are Ichabod’s “Exploring” noises. Is he on the floor?

Me: well he’s not in/on the cages. Where did he go? Over here?

Oh. Yup.

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I ordered a mysafebirdstore order of bird food three days ago (partially to stock up but also because I legit just need more food soon), and it still hasn’t shipped. Three days isn’t that long, but MSBS orders usually ship like, the same day. And I usually get the package in like two days. It’s consistently one of the best things about them. So for them, three days and not having even shipped IS a really long time, and I’m starting to get a bit worried. They haven’t sent out any emails or posted anything on their website that I’ve seen about being affected by the virus, but I imagine it must be because of that??

Are they just overwhelmed by people trying to stock up and are a little behind? Or have they actually shut down their warehouse or whatever and just not notified us yet??? Idk man! But I’m kinda low on cockatiel food and if we end up with a shelter-in-place order and I run out of food...(I mean, it’ll be fine—grocery trips are still allowed even in shelter-in-place areas, and I can always get crappy bird seed or whatever, and I have plenty of rice and quinoa and pasta and things, so I can come up with things to ride them over. I’m just worried I’m general and obviously it wouldn’t be IDEAL.)

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Lol nvm I got the notification today that it’s shipped and arriving tomorrow. All good! I just got jumpy because usually they are SO so fast.

[flockdynamics]

I ordered a mysafebirdstore order of bird food three days ago (partially to stock up but also because I legit just need more food soon), and it still hasn’t shipped. Three days isn’t that long, but MSBS orders usually ship like, the same day. And I usually get the package in like two days. It’s consistently one of the best things about them. So for them, three days and not having even shipped IS a really long time, and I’m starting to get a bit worried. They haven’t sent out any emails or posted anything on their website that I’ve seen about being affected by the virus, but I imagine it must be because of that??

Are they just overwhelmed by people trying to stock up and are a little behind? Or have they actually shut down their warehouse or whatever and just not notified us yet??? Idk man! But I’m kinda low on cockatiel food and if we end up with a shelter-in-place order and I run out of food...(I mean, it’ll be fine—grocery trips are still allowed even in shelter-in-place areas, and I can always get crappy bird seed or whatever, and I have plenty of rice and quinoa and pasta and things, so I can come up with things to ride them over. I’m just worried I’m general and obviously it wouldn’t be IDEAL.)

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Me: *walks into bedroom*

Bird cages: *Empty*

Me: “Birds?”

*no response*

Me, a little louder: “Birds??”

*no response*

The closet shelves where sometimes they hide: *also empty*

Me, starting to get concerned: “Birds???”

Birds:

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He does a hold

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Gwen is beak grinding and t is the CUTEST thing—I almost never hear/see the pis beak grind. But I can’t get a video because the TV is on in the background and if I get up to turn it off she’ll stop because she’ll want to know what I’m doing.

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These idiots have two gigantic fucking cages, and keep putting themselves to bed like this.

NOW I know you might be thinking: aww how sweet! And if these idiots actually LIKED each other, I would agree, and I would let them sleep that way.

These idiots, however, do NOT like each other. This is about as close as they’ll get—the only time I’ve seen them closer is if there’s a piece of millet they need to share, then they will DEIGN to be slightly closer, as long as they can completely ignore each other. Otherwise, any closer and it’s a (literal) hissy fit. They routinely chase each other out of areas.

SO I do not trust these idiots to sleep this close to each other. SO PLEASE STOP TRYING!!