It is such a hard life being a budgie.  Monty keeps telling me that the amount of playing and eating he is expected to do is difficult at times, how to fit it all in when you only have 24 hours a day.

Perhaps this is why all seven birds have been reluctant to settle down at night, far too much playing to fit in.

Right now they are relaxing with a little bit of Absolute 80's.  Today they have enjoyed egg-food, vegetables, millet and lots of playing around - especially Roswell and Snowy on the rings hanging from the rack on the wall.

Snowy and Roswell love these rings, they have been hanging on the bottom one ringing the bell with either their feet or beak and then flying off squawking.

Monty has been doing his nut today too - flying in figures of eights round our heads squawking like mad!

Sky persists in trying to make friends with Lilek, I think he's softening to his advances as he doesn't chitter at him nearly as much these days.

I had Monty sitting on my thumb eating some red millet earlier and Roswell decided he also wanted a go so he flew onto my shoulder for a brief second.

I got him onto my other hand and then Blue-boy tried to get in on the act but I had ran out of space, so we pegged some millet to the cage for him and he shared it with Sky, Jerry and the greedy piggy Roswell later on.  Turns out that Blue-boy prefers to eat in a goup when humans hands are involved, safety in numbers I suppose!

Would you like some pictures from the day? - tough here they are anyway! :D

 

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Update on the mob

It's been more than a week since I updated the blog on the fiends so I thought I had better give an update! News in alphabetical order.. Blue-boy The Blue-wonder is settling in very well, he loves to sing and get on especially well with Jerry and Roswell, they all fly and wander about together like a trouble-some gang of teenage tearaways. Roswell is the muscle, Jerry the mouth and Blue-boy the pretty one that keeps his mouth shut. Jerry His cheekiness still knows no bounds, although occasionally he'll hang out with Monty and they'll sing and biff eachothers beaks both trying to gain the upper hand (wing?) on the other. Monty never backs down! Lilek Still slightly anti-social with the other birds but he's showing great signs of improving. In the past few days he has even been singing really quietly to the other birds. He took to the vegetables - especially basil really quickly!We saw him sit in his play rings a few time and this boy really loves keys, he flaps at them, chirrups softly and tries to feed them. We're trying to get him to play more and he enjoys an occassional head scratch from a wooden lolly-stick. He turns his head, it's very cute :) Monty What to say about the King himself. Just today he landed on the arm of the sofa next to me and started singing to me - he's never done that before, it was so sweet. Jerry came over and landed next to him to see if there were any treats on offer! It's very strange but Monty seems to know when I am concentrating on something and this is the time he's most likely to pay me attention and try and get me to notice him! Roswell His friendship with Jerry continues to blossom, Jerry can often be seen preening Roswells big fluffy head. Once I saw Monty try and preen Roswell slyly but Roswell backed away thinking that Monty was trying to beak him! Roswell sometimes hopps about and sings, it's really something to see because he's quite big but the dude can still hop wih the best of them! Sky Sky can be quite In-yer-face with the other budgies and frequesntly takes part in Snowy-chasing, in fact he quite likes to chase any budgies around until they get tired! He's the one that has most tried to strike up a friendship with Lilek, he's very persistent and I am sure it will pay off eventually. Lilek is definitely tolerating his antics more these days. Snowy He is really enjoying the play-rings that Lilek brought with him! He's taken to climbing down to the bottom ring and dinging the bell continuously with his little pink feet! I'll try and get some pictures on later too :)

Give us stuff.. or else

Or else what you may ask - well I didn't want to find out so I gave 'em stuff.

Monty wouldn't let me near his food in case I stole some, he said I eat more than the budgies and it wouldn't be fair on them if I shared. He has a point.

Sky did his Taxi Driver impression, it was very good.

The rest just scoffed food and sang all day long - it's what they do best.

Another thing they do very well is bite stuff - Snowy bites the sandpaper I put in their play-station, he has made it his goal to tear off as many small pieces daily that he can - I am worried what he is doing with them, perhaps building a raft or making a loofah so Monty can scratch him in the bath.

Blue-Boy also loves biting stuff, I keep having to shoo him away from the budgie screen as he's chipping away at the wood - maybe he's whittling it to make it pole-like, we'll have to see.

Roswell is budgie of the rings

Roswell has been practising his acrobatics yet again, he loves the new rings that Lilek brought with him and uses them to perform stunning acrobatic tricks worthy of David Coppernuts himself.

He certainly is an agile little budgie as you can see by these photos. When he got to the bottom he rang the bell and flew off. We think that his sole purpose of climbing onto the rings was to get to the bell on the end :)

Good morning from the budgies

Rise and shine say the seven little terrors..

...greet the new day.

Gourmet breakfast, Lord of the rings..

I hung up a new toy yesterday - it's Lileks and I had it in his cage but he was ignoring it so to entice him to play I hung it from the rack on the wall.

Monty and Roswell have both balanced in a ring so far. I am hoping that Lilek takes an interest in it at some point.

Look at their lovely breakfast - these birds eat better than I do! :)

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Happy Days with the seven Amigos

It's been a dull and dark day but the budgies have enjoyed lots of vegetables, flown around and sang a lot.

Sky has even had some "happy time" with his mirror, bit shocking for us but I guess it's perfectly natural for a budgie!

At the moment the radio is on and they're all tweeting along to "Instant Karma" by John Lennon, the budgies are singing for peace it seems, none present though :D

Pictures from the day..

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Some pictures from the day

Keeps me busy running after budgies all day ya know!

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The Silly Seven

I caught a great moment just now, the budgies all eating together :)

The silly seven, scoffing their little faces on Trill together at the seed troughs.

The magnificent seven - Welcome Lilek

Okay so this is definitely the last one...

Lilek was brought to us because his partner flew out of the window and the lady that looked after him did not want to get any more budgies as she felt she didn't have enough time to give them.

Lilek is a very lonely and stressed budgie at the moment so we decided today to introduce him to the flock as he kept regurgitating onto his foot and then eating it.

He's definitely not ill, he has bright eyes, doesn't sit fluffed up, is lively and his plumage looks perfect.

Anyway he has already landed on the floor, my keyboard and monitor, the window sill, on my hand, my husbands head and hand, this boy is not shy!

Pictures from the day!

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Classic FM for the budgies

There is still Snowy chasing going on today so we have deployed some Classical music to calm the birds down, they're all in their separate pairs tweeting away and preening to the soothing sounds of Classic FM.

Drives me bonkers when they start chasing each other around and wing flapping at their fellow birdies - it seems to happen at least once a month for up to a week.

Still they're calm....for now!

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Chase me!

There has been waaaay too much Snowy chasing today!

Occasionally Roswell decides that Snowy is just too gorgeous to ignore for a second longer and chases him around the room, this upsets both Monty and Jerry and they start fighting out of frustration. So we have to separate some of them into different cages for a while to calm down.

Oh the drama!

On the calm and sane side, Blue Boy and Sky have been making great progress, we gave them some different things to look at and moved them into the Summer palace so that they can get used to a new layout and have a little bit more room to stretch their wings and strengthen them so that they'll be able to fly better.

Even spotted Blue boy eating some Basil and Coriander on the sly.. :)

Bad Mr Ducky

Monty has been telling off Mr Ducky, we're not sure what he did but Monty did not agree with it.

I'm looking at the budgie in the mirror

Earlier on today we decided to dispense with the receipts that we had cunningly blu-tacked to the bottom of the mirror (the budgies had been pulling them off!) and fix a wooden plank to the mirror instead so that the birds could land on it.

Here are pictures of Roswell, Monty, Snowy and Jerry admiring themselves in the mirror..

..note that Roswell can't take his eyes off of his gorgeous self :)

New arrivals! Blue Boy and Sky

I have been looking for a couple of budgies to rehome and live with my current flock of four little firey fiends.

Well a kind lady and her sister have asked me to take in a couple of cute little boys called Blue Boy (a cobalt blue I think) and Sky (a very pretty fancy spangle of some sort!)

They brought them over earlier this afternoon and they have been settling in and calling to my boys really loudly who have of course been reciprocating!

Here are a couple of pics of the pretty little boys!

looking forward to integrating them in time :D

Best Wedding anniversary present ever and certainly cheers me up slightly over yesterdays horrid day.

Welcome Blue Boy and Sky, I hope you are happy with us!

Tribute to Charlotte

I answered an advertisement on Gumtree this morning to someone that had found a little budgie and wanted a person to give her a home.

Today was Tube Strike Day in London but this did not stop me racing over to Tottenham Court Road station on the underground with a little carry-box with millet, trill and a space for some water, also a folded t-shirt for the budgie to sit on.

Unfortunately the little budgie had already passed away before I arrived, she was a sweet looking little blue budgie - don't know how long she had been outside for.  Did she get free from an aviary or someone's home? - guess I'll never know.

We called her Charlotte after the name of the street she came from.

Rest in Peace little Charlotte.

Here is a pic of her that was emailed to me by the guys that found her just after they posted the advert.

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If Monty were 6 feet taller you would be terrified of him

Look at this little guy - he's about 4 inches tall but he could rip your throat out if he was our size.

In reality he was just scratching his head with his foot - makes a great picture though doesn't it :)

My guys aren't spoilt...or weird.... are they?

Monty keeps jumping into the grit pot - he's the only one of the birds that fits all the way in to the tiny ceramic ramekin that the grit is put into and he's been making the most of that lately by sitting in it. Perhaps it's comfortable or more likely he is crazy! :)

Does anyone else spend ages chopping their birds vegetables into tiny little pieces (just the right size)so that they can pick them up with their beaks and throw them all over the place creating a lot of mess, or as the budgies would lead you to believe - "art".

Jerry is definitely a modern day Picasso, there is no vegetables no matter what size immune to being picked up and lobbed as far as he can whilst running to the top corner of the cage and peering over the edge to see where it has landed.

The sun has just come out, it's been raining felines and canines all day!

The day is looking up - what next? - watch this space ;)

Masterchef for budgies, Monty preens his pretty show bird, Roswell and Jerry enjoy alfresco dining

Seriously, I spend more time in the morning deciding on the Budgies menu and making it interesting and pretty for them than I do making my own breakfast!

I wonder if when the budgies notice my efforts they come up with scores and criticism and relate this to eachother, in their best Greg Wallace and John Torode voices of course..

Monty "Top marks for effort but it just doesn't have the flavour we were expecting"

Roswell "For me there wasn't enough of it, if I wanted tiny portions I would have ordered a happy meal"

Jerry "It tastes okay but the presentation has let you down again"

Snowy "I was expecting big things but Delia Smith could come up with better with both hands tied behind her back and a blindfold on"

We went out earlier and when we got back home the budgies were all on the play centre together snoozing, this was a rare quiet, peaceful moment so I took a photo!

Also Snowy has taken to hanging upside down off of things, the wee beautiful boy is getting more daring and confident :)