First Meandering Thoughts

Here I sit with Dorian Grey, my African Grey Parrot on my knee, wondering if he's going to decorate my pants for the third time today.  Sigh.  Owning large birds isn't the barrel of fun people think it is, though I admit he has his moments of flawless adorability.  (Anyone with questions about living with a Grey,  an Orange-Winged Amazon, or an Umbrella Cockatoo is welcome to ask and I'll try to give intelligent and hopefully helpful answers.) 

Dorian is 17 years old now - I know because we raised him from baby-birdhood, and he truly thinks he rules the roost.  Since his first language is English (instead of bird-squawks, which he also makes) it's really given my husband and me interesting insight on how hookbills think!  If I could draw worth a bird poo I would probably start a comic about him and his antics and demands.  For example, being an adult, he's decided that I'm his mate, and male birds show their interest by upchucking food for their intended.  If you've never had a bird slime your finger with yellow birdfood goo, you probably sleep a lot better than I do.  He's also constantly telling me what a good bird he is, and telling me that I'm a "good boo".  He knows I'm not a bird, so I guess I must be a "boo".  On the other hand, my name is Dru, and he calls both my husband, Al and me Dru, so I imagine he thinks "Dru" means "large,funny-looking featherless things that have food."

He also spends a significant amount of time on my lap with his head down so I can preen him.  Oh, you thought birds with their heads down to be "petted" were being affectionate?  Try again.  Birds don't just preen to straighten out their pretty feathers.  They nearly constantly grow new feathers which emerge from their skin in little rolled-up shafts covered with keratin; like little spears.  Part of what they're doing  is nipping at these keratin shafts, which become hard and uncomfortable.  Imagine your entire body covered with sharpened pencils that jab you every time you move the wrong way.  Once they crack those shafts the soft feather beneath can start to unfold.  So the cute, endearing head down on my lap is actually a demand for me to feel his neck for new feather shafts, because he can't reach those himself!!  But it's mutual, to be honest.  I crack his feather shafts and in return, he bites holes into my clothing for me.  It's a relationship.  No, really.

Oh, there he goes. He's off my lap and on his way to our bathroom, where he spends time each day building a cozy nest by shredding old magazines into tiny bits.  Hey, it's a hobby.  It keeps him happy and minimizes the amount of times I need to go wash yellow birdfood goo off my fingers.

There's so much more to tell about Dorian, and Polgara (the Amazon parrot) and Rover (the cockatoo) and about hookbills in general.  No doubt I'll come back soon with interesting stories about how he told me he wanted to taste my cheesecake without knowing the word, or how he made up his own word for "fudge".  Think about it in the meantime.