Merry Christmas

Learning is Fun

I bought a book on parrot training. Not much of it pertained to a bird that of Tafari's age (4 months) but it was interesting and had some insightful information about bird behavior in general.  The last chapter, devoted to teaching your birds some "tricks", was the one I enjoyed the most.  Teaching colors was one of the tricks described.  I decided to begin training with that lesson. I thought it would be fun for him and stimulate his brain and also a way for me to interact with him. He loves activity and watches everything I do.  Awhile back I purchased a puzzle that hangs inside Tafari's cage. It has little wooden blocks that fit into shaped slots. He hardly touches it.  I took the blocks out and colored them with a non toxic marker.  This evening he learned, in one lesson, with 100% accuracy, the color yellow.  It really only took two or three rewards for him to figure out if he touched the yellow block in any way he would get a sunflower seed.  I mixed them up, stacked them, and otherwise tried to confuse him and each time when I said yellow he picked the correct block.  He's a smart little fellow and really friendly. I'm anxious to add a second color but will probably reinforce yellow for a couple days first.

Parrot Training

Tafari is enjoying his parrot training book as much as I am.

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R I O

The breeder that I bought Tafari from gave me a back issue of Bird Talk magazine and it had an article about the premier of the movie RIO in it. I was discussing the article with Elisha and she told me that it was good and so I bought a copy of the DVD on Amazon knowing that our nephew was coming to spend the weekend and thinking that he too might enjoy it.  We watched it last evening and it really is a good movie. It's somewhat of a musical and it also addresses the issue of the illegal bird trade (i.e. bird poaching and smuggling) and also about loyalty and good and evil.  Four thumbs up from this household. If you haven't seen it - I recommend that you do. We're watching it again this morning!

Tafari

You might recall that in May I wrote about losing my 17 year old Lovebird.  He lived a long a happy life as far as birds can do, with us.  I cleaned his cage and put a picture of him in it and left it in the living room for a month or so. Initially I made a few phone calls looking for another bird but there were none to be found. Finally I gave up and decided to think about it and had Andrew put his cage in the attic.  I figured when and if the time was right we would get another bird.  Wednesday I made an inquiry with the breeder I had contacted in May and got the same answer. No birds available-they had had a series of infertile clutches throughout the year yada yada.  On Thursday I did a quick Google search on lovebirds in Columbus and as luck would have it found the blog of a young man who breeds them and said he had available birds. I emailed him and he replied that evening and we talked on the phone and I made an appointment for this evening to see his birds. Turns out he only lives a few miles from us and yes he had two males.  For those of you who don't know much about birds typically the males are very sweet and bond with you and the females are bitchy and lay eggs and bite.  Andrew and I  purchased a peach faced lovebird.  He's the most adorable and sweet bird already at only three months old.  Elisha came over for a late dinner and the three of us sat in the living room together as she read from a list of hundred's of names A-Z hell bent on getting this animal a name.  At one point I think I fell asleep as she recited name after name while nothing was striking my fancy.  Just as I was saying lets sleep on it I came upon the name Tafari on Behind the Name.  It means he who inspires awe.  Elisha and I immediately liked it as our bird has the most beautiful coloring-something like the earth when you view it from space-brilliant blue and green.  Anyway we got to reminiscing about our other Little Bird and dug out some photos. When Elisha was 6 years old she was just delighted with Little Bird and he was ever so charming.  Tonight she had that same look of delight with Tafari as he too managed to charm us as only a lovebird can.  

 

Tafari

 Tail feather spread

 Checking out his cage. Tomorrow I'm shopping for a larger cage.