What have the budgies been up to?

[caption id="attachment_1854" align="alignleft" width="595" caption="Do you think those budgies in there would like to come out to play?"]
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[caption id="attachment_1855" align="alignleft" width="595" caption="Roswell: Why would you take a photo of me from this angle, you loony?"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1856" align="alignleft" width="595" caption="Hector, Do you think I could lay eggs in that compartment below?"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1857" align="alignleft" width="510" caption="I was dozing and you woke me just to take a photo?"][/caption]

 

Fly my pretty!

Got a great photo of little Lilek flying towards me yesterday.

It makes him look a little more chunky than he is cos his wings are behind him and it makes them look short.

Look at the eager expression on his little chops :)

[caption id="attachment_1848" align="alignleft" width="595" caption="Dumpling...coming through...make room!"][/caption]

 

Pay attention to me!

Monty decided he needed a little bit of extra attention today so he flew over to the husband and hopped up and down his arm and sang.

Whilst this was happening Dumpling (aka Lilek) was on my shoulder squawking in his best high pitched way right in my ear)

Gotta love 'em, they do like you to know how they feel :)

Where's Monty?

I can't find him anywhere!

Oh....

There he is!

Getting the fiends to eat their vitamins

I just gave the budgies a big plate of vegetables and egg and they are currently tucking in and flinging it everywhere with glee.

The vegetable mess contains the following:

The Bird Pellets and Pine Nuts are sprinkled into the mix just to make sure that any fussy birdies still get their vits!)

Sweetcorn niblets (rich in vitamin B)
Broccoli grated (rich in vitamins B, C and K)
Carrot grated (A, K)
Egg chopped (A,D,E,K)
Chopped Pine Nuts (B,E,K)
Crushed Harrisons Superfine Bird pellets (All manner of healthy things)

Dumpling (Lilek) on my knee

Lilek likes to help me work at my computer. he bites my fingers as I type.

 

This was emailed from my phone hence the poorer than usual quality, just thought it was a cute moment!

Some pictures from the day

Keeps me busy running after budgies all day ya know!

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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.. :)

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 :)

A morning feast for a lucky budgie

Monty was the only one brave enough to sit on my hand and eat a sprig of millet this morning, he's been singing about it ever since. He has puffed himself up and is telling the other three that this is why he's the boss of the house, because he's brave and worthy of human attention. Probably telling them that he has the small human with the glasses thoroughly trained and that she will hold out her arm with millet whenever he feels like some.

Not sure what his signal to me is - it's probably subliminal, Monty would definitely use the power of the budgie mind to out-wit me :)

They have their egg and grated broccoli mix this morning, later on I'll replace it with babycorn, carrot, basil and perhaps some more broccoli.

Me, trained - NEVER! :D

Here are some pics of Monty enjoying his tucker.

Basil makes my birds nuts

I am sure that basil is like some sort of wonderdrug that makes budgies go crazy-insane. Monty is currently singing to his food (the aforementioned basil) dancing around like a loon, not sure what song he's singing but maybe it goes something like this:

"basil basil, you are so green and tasty and leafy and I want to bite bite bite you"

I am beginning to understand the inner workings of a budgies mind.

Will someone please tell Roswell that there are lots of interesting things to bite here such as cuttlefish, iodine blocks, branches etc and that he does not need to bite the budgie playground every few minutes - it's really noisy because the wood is quite hard and we're frightened it will hurt his poor beak.

Now all four budgies are making a swiss cheese style pattern in the remaining basil leaves and totally ignoring the fig that I had cunningly placed beside it in yet another failed attempt to get them to eat fruit..

Sunny Singing, bathing and flying!

The birds are singing along to Portishead's "Sour Times" on Kerrang in the sunshine, very lively and happy today it would seem.

Took a few photos of the feathered fiends frolicking about (try saying that three times fast)

Today I will be washing "Budgingham Palace" and quite a few of their toys, I expect much squawking as they're evicted from their home for a few hours and have to spend some time in the "Summer Palace". I'll probably peg some spinach up for them to nibble at, that'll keep them distracted for...oh...five minutes at least!

Now to think of a new way to arrange the cage so that they don't get bored - I honestly don't know who is keeping who entertained here :)

Enjoy your day!

Marianne and the gang

Snowy Du Jour

Snow is far too popular at the moment for my liking.

No I’m not jealous of my budgie boy, I am just sick of him being flown after and chased by the other 3 budgies it is getting tiresome. We’re having to separate them every five minutes at the moment and cannot leave them alone if they are all out of their cages.

Anyone got a solution that doesn’t involve permanent separation, I’m hoping it’s just a silly phase they’re going through!

Here he is, the boy of the moment..

Mischief, Pigeons and Preening the wrong bird

Another naughty mischievous day for the budgies. Budgies jumping on others or at least trying to – we stop and separate them hopefully before it gets to that point.

They’ve been calling out really loudly to the flies and pigeons outside the window and squawking because they think we turned off the sun.

This reminds me, we keep getting the same pigeon landing on the balcony and staring in, maybe it thinks it’s a budgie? – I think Roswell thinks he himself is a pigeon :)

Also I caught Monty trying to join in with Jerry preening Roswell yesterday too but when Roswell realised - he backed off thinking Monty was trying to bite him.

Monty never preens Roswell or Jerry usually so it was  a weird moment.

 

 

A calmer moment, Monty and Snowy huddled together on the cuttlebone and Jerry preening Roswell.

 

 

Mmmmm lovely Fig treat stick

 

 

Let me in, I’ll be good, honest

 

 

I trained as a classical actor you know

 

 

Jerry and Roswell “Look, it’s a Monty in it’s natural habitat, it looks grumpy”

A paddling pool and some mysterious orange stuff

Thankfully today in Budgie land things have been a lot calmer – maybe due to the troops sleeping separately or maybe just cos they were scared of the high winds today.

Budgies seem to have hopefully grasped the concept of “budgie shall not bite budgie”

Who is this little white fella Roswell? – is he eating our millet?

I have my eye on you and yes I did try some of the orange concoction how did you know?

 

I’m hiding tee hee, she doesn’t know I’m here

 

I’m a cute little puffball and I wouldn’t ever hurt any budgie

I found a bargain when I went to do a little shopping, it’s meant to be a “double cat feeding dish” but I thought it would make a great paddling pool for the boys.  So far Monty has ventured in which is a start – the ping pong balls seemed to help :)

In my efforts to vary their diet I made a cauliflower, sweet potato and couscous mash for the birds, they had a slight nibble and will get more tomorrow morning!

There is plenty in the fridge so they’d better like it or it’s on the menu for us this week – sssshhhhh don’t tell the husband!