Happy Birthday Blueboy and Sky!

On 5th October as well as being my 9 year wedding anniversary it was Sky and Blueboys too!

A whole year with us, which makes Sky 5 and Blueboy 3 years old.

They came to us together In October 2010 and have joined a happy flock.

Sky is great friends with Lilek, they whizz about the front room together causing mayhem and mischief. Blueboy is inseparable from Hector. Blueboy can be a nervous little budgie and Hector protects him, makes him feel safe.

Here are the birthday boys.

Lilek's progress

Lilek came to us on 10th October 2010. His owner wanted him to be with a flock of budgies because he was lonely and she could not commit to another budgie time-wise.

When he first arrived he was very anti-social with other budgies. This behaviour would take the form of chittering at other budgies and lunging out at them (not biting) when they got close. Lilek would put his head down low, fan his tail and chitter until they moved. This meant another budgie could not even get close to him.

Sky was first to take an interest and started following Lilek round but he would either have angry noises made at him or just get ignored.

Lilek also had a very bad regurgitation habit. I mean compulsively, seriously bad. We wondered how a budgie could regurgitate so much food. He would spit it all out in a controlled manner onto his foot and then eat it back off again. Some of it would fall onto the cage floor, so I was continuously clearing it up and changing the papers.

I changed round the cage, removed perches but then he would just regurgitate onto the cage door and it would go all over out floor. Drove me insane!

Slowly slowly, he has integrated himself into the group. A few months ago, he let Sky preen him, it made me feel really happy that he would let another budgie that close to him.

Now he has actually stopped regurgitating, it's been about three weeks since he stained the perches and floor with seed and vegetables!

He also occasionally mingles with Monty and sits to listen to Jerry and Snowy sing. No chittering at other budgies - only at me when I put my hand in the cage to change food or move something at night!

look how beautiful and white his plumage is!

Customised piccy of the fiends

Look at this photo my friend from a budgie forum made for me. Isn't it brilliant?

Thank you Zohie!

New Toy

The fiends have been getting to grips with their new toy. It's a swinging perch with eight places on it for them to land. They seem to like using it to preen eachother on, especially Monty and Snowy in the evenings.

I'll look up at about 8.30pm to see Snowy on the lower part and Monty above preening his head. It's very cute to watch.

Here are some photos of them enjoying the new toy having a swing-a-ling.

Also see Dumpling below, still obsessed with my feet. Just when I thought he had grown out of it!

Who da Pretty Boyz?

It's a nice morning for admiring yourself in the mirror don't you think?

Sky talks to a young lady

I was talking on the phone and I just caught something moving on my desk out of the corner of my eye. It turns out that Sky has taken a shine to the clay painted budgie. It's strange really because all of the other birds are scared of it.

He was dancing round her, showing off, really amusing to watch :)

Little budgies enjoy a splash about

Here are some photos of the budgies bathing and splashing about. Snowy seems to like a relaxing bathe on his own with only a yellow Ducky for company where as with the others it's a bit of a free-for-all. Roswell and Jerry did chivalrously let Custard bate fist which is most unlike them. Custard has really come out of her shell since she got here - at first she was frightened to go near the other budgies but now she wants to be a part of everything - especially where Roswell and Jerry are concerned. She even has girly chats with Snowy sometimes. :)

There aint 'alf been some changes

I have been in hospital for five days and my wonderful husband has been taking care of the gang for me.

He has also come up with some innovative things to make both of our lives easier.

Layout changes

My long suffering husband has had the ingenious idea of using newspaper on top of the tiles on the cages (tucked in at the sides) which is saving no end of time and mess - at the end of each evening I usually clean the tiles which is a painstaking task. Now I just take off the newspaper and throw it away to be replaced in the morning by fresh paper :)

Also Hector and Custard no longer eat in their own cage separate from the other 7, they have been firmly integrated into the group, with the help of one small ramekin for budgie 9 to eat from as we only have 8 seed trough places. We think that the budgie that gets number 9 seed trough is very lucky though cos it holds slightly more!

Social changes

Blue-boy and Hector:

Blue-boy and Hector have become firm friends, they are inseparable, they hang out together all or most of the time. Blu-boy has taken to "pinging" the cage bars with his little beak to get attention. Hhis attention is mostly required from Hector although my husband said he walked past the bird cage late at night to check up on them and he heard a little "ping" then too, Blue-boy was letting him know he knew he was there!

NEWSFLASH: I also saw Blue-boy preening Hectors head earlier today which was really sweet.

Since Blue-Boy and Hector struck up this friendship my husband says that Blue-boy has been sleeping far less and enjoying jolly japes with Hector instead, I am really happy about this as Blue-boy tended to spend a lot of time on his own before.

Custard and Roswell:

Custard has formed an obsession with Roswell, "she" (we're not clear yet as here cere is pink because of the mutation she is, we may never know for sure) follows him around for most of the day "Ooh aren't you big and strong Roswell " she murmurs in her best small lady voice.

Custard along with Monty are our smallest birds and Roswell is the biggest - so opposites really do attract. Luckily it is not al one way as I have seen them bashing beaks and singing together too!

The photos today are going to me a bit rubbish as my batteries have run out and the rechargeables take a about a day for 30 minutes of power - hopefully some decent ones tomorrow!

Monty has been vying for attention, landing on my husbands arm and nipping him and then chasing Jerry away when he tries to land near. Monty does some little spins in the air he's a real agile little budgie.

Lilek was very pleased to see my feet for the first time in 5 days and made light work of "wooing" them, I had to put my shoes on in the end.

Snowy still loves the green ball in the soap dish and last night he was singing to it, chasing it around and biffing it with his beak.

Sky is loud and confident, likes to play with most of the other budgies on a Rota-basis, likes to spread himself around a bit - at the moment he's interrupting Blue-Boy and Hectors nap by trying to engage Hector in a beak to beak!

They are all doing very well, my husband did a great job looking after them in my absence.

I wasnt able to post yesterday but just to let you know it was Roswell and Snowy's first birthday (they're not really one but it's the date that we got them, I think they were 4-6 months old). Paul gave the fiends some millet to chomp on in aid of this momentous occasion, I found the evidence of it on the floor when I returned home. Note to self: Must train fiends to sweep floors.

Thank you Brian for supplying them, they being us much joy.

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Have yourself a Budgie little christmas

The budgies have really been enjoying themselves this christmas. Some relatives came round on the 23rd and their "uncle" played with Lilek and Sky a lot, mostly Lilek. I think that uncle D enjoyed himself more than the budgies did, he even let Lilek stand on his head, Lilek looked very comfortable up there. Uncle D is lucky that Lilek had had made a dropping just a minute earlier!

Their nan and aunties bought them millet, which they obviously LOVE!

We got them a budgie mirror "disco" ball so that they can listen to their favourite tunes and boogie on the dance floor.

We put some small Xmas decorations up behind the budgie screen so that the birdies couldn't nibble any of them but the room still had a slightly festive feel to it.

Today the budgies are tired from all their Xmas feasting so I ran them a relaxing Basil bath. After they had finished splashing about in the water with basil in it, I pegged up the basil on to their climbing frame and playground for them to nibble on. Well you have to cleanse your palate don't you :D

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Happy Birthday Monty!

Yesterday we celebrated an anniversary with Monty - it has been a year since we brought Monty and Eric home. So in effect Monty is one year old (even though he's about a year and a half really, but we don't know his true date of hatching)

I made the budgies small white party hats and we bought them some treat sticks that fell apart so we put them in a dish (actually it's the budgie bath..) for them to feast their little beaks upon.

Earlier on Snowy presented Monty with some art that he had made from a sandpaper sheet that I had lined the bottom of the playground with. Let me know what you think it is, Snowy seems to think it's abstract and open to personal interpretation.

Lilek has been very busy landing on our feet , arms and hands then singing to them as well as his ongoing relationship with Sky - it's really nice to see them as friends.

Anyway I have party hats and millet to clear up..

Enjoy the pics

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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 :)

Some pictures from the day

Keeps me busy running after budgies all day ya know!

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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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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!