It's our chair now

Roswell, Jerry and Monty have claimed my chair as their own. I only hope I am allowed to sit on it occasionally.

They even land on it when I am at my desk.

Look at tiny Monty next to Jerry and Roswell. Jerry is trying to stand as tall as he can, you wouldn't think he was a pet type and Roswell an exhibition bird.

 

Where's Jerry?

He's a master of camouflage. Can you spot him?

Progress of a Blueboy

Blue boy has recently moved in with Roswell and Jerry. He didn't have much to pack but he did bring with him nightly millet rations. He, Jerry and Roswell enjoy sharing these in the evening as a team-bonding experience.

It was decided that Hector and Abbie were being a bit mean to Blueboy, pushing him off the perch and not letting him eat. He was very reluctant to leave but now he enjoys his new digs.

Roswell and Jerry however are a lot kinder, of course there is a little shuffling about to get the best position but in the end they all eat happily side-by-side.

Blueboy is sleeping a lot better too - actually I have no idea whether he'd sleeping but he's calmer and quieter at night. Much less stressed.

Yesterday I witnessed Blueboy sing twice, Very small songs and quite short but it's the first time he has sang since September.

Each morning Lilek tries to bash beaks with a reluctant Blueboy. It's good that other budgies are trying to socialise with him.

A new toy was bitten a bit the other day but Blueboy says it wasn't him. Sometimes I wonder if they realise that I want them to bite these things and play with them or they think that they are being naughty!

Jerry wins new toys for the fiends!

The budgies received a parcel today from Canada!

They watched excitedly as I sliced it open with some scissors. Inside were 7 lovely toys that Jerry had won in a competition!

Thank you Zohie they are lovely :)

I have hung them up all around the place and so far the birds are scared of them but one day when they are less chickeny, they will enjoy them :D

Peace at last..

I am happy to report that there have been no Monty and Jerry fights today at all.

I even caught the two suspects sitting in Abbie and Hector's cage sharing a piece of millet together.

Hopefully no more scuffles in the near future.

Monty and Jerry - Battle of the bruisers

It's happening again. Sigh.

Monty and Jerry have been at eachother over Snowy for about 4 days now. We keep having to separate them into cages and giving them time out.

Snowy decides that green is the best colour ever and constantly chases Jerry and tries to play kissy-face with him. This makes Monty mad and he pounces on Jerry. Jerry flies off and starts flapping his wings at Monty, making a growling, gurgly noise. Then they end up in a ball of feathers and claws.

Poor Monty has a cut on his cere that Jerry inflicted and my husband and I have had to physically separate them several times, getting bitten in the process. We had a look at Monty's cere and it seems okay, I cleaned it with a cotton bud. It'll heal, it's not the first time he's been slightly wounded in this area.

They both gets like this every few months, I guess it's their hormones..

Whatever it is I wish they would stop!

You can see Monty's cere in this photo, also here he is incarcerated with Snowykins.

Naughty Fiends

We have had a nightmare day today with the budgies. They have not been their usual calm(ish) selves. The day has mostly consisted of Jerry being chased by Snowy. This upsets both Roswell and Monty. Snowy is King Montys bird and he gets very jealous if Snowy shows too much interest in Jerry.

It's strange because Monty doesn't mind Snowy spending time with any of the other birds, only Jerry.

Anyhow, the "Jerry chasing" outbreak has caused Monty to become angry and square up to Jerry, even leaping on him. Monty is scared of no bird, even though he's the smallest one here!

Jerry and Roswell, Monty and Snowy have been put in separate Hagen cages until they calm down. We are on the second round of this now, as the first time I let them out it started all over again!

"Jerry chasing" used to happen often but this is the first time in more than six months we have had an incident.

Fingers crossed that it's not going to be a week long affair like it has in the past.

Jerry says "I'll sing to anything"

Today Jerry has been singing to the wheel at the bottom of the table that the Summer Palace is situated on.

He has a great singing voice. Jerry is probably the best singer of my flock. Perhaps this is due to the fact that in the Pet Shop that we acquired him from, he was housed next to lots of Canaries.

Jerry could be part-canary, he is definitely fluent in the lingo.

[nogallergy]

Shhhhwing!

Roswell, Snowy, Monty and Jerry having a lovely swing together :)

Amazing that they stayed on long enough for me to capture the moment!

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!

Easter Shennanigans

Monty has been getting very high today, no not in that way - he's been perching in the highest places possible to show that he is still the boss of the house.

Roswell has been putting on his cute puppy dog face every time I point the camera in his direction so it was only fair that I take some photos of him and post at least one to the blog.

I put out a pot of stuff for the budgies to forage through - some apple sticks, millet and some crackers. Not sure that they ate anything but the millet to be honest but at least it gives them something to do!

Snowy had his favourite vegetable today - carrot - I think he just likes smearing it all over his beak and face.

[gallery]

Musical Day

Earlier on when "Do you love me" (my sister reliably informs me that this song features in Dirty Dancing [or Dirty Dancer as my dad used
to call it] and took this opportunity to try and force me to watch it with Monty - pah) came on the radio Monty suddenly flew over to me enthusiastically and started dancing up and down my arm.

Then Jerry did his rendition of "It's raining men" with Roswell on backing vocals - whilst asleep!

Right now Blueboy is "Pinging" the bars along to "Mama Mia" by Abba.

My budgies have weird musical tastes.

OUCH - Dumpling just bit my leg, he's singing to my ankle and biting to try to get my attention. He always tries to get my full attention when I am typing, especially blog posts for some reason. Does he know I am writing my budgie blog and think I have not mentioned him enough?

Anyway the fiends had lots of millet today and made their usual mess, most of which I have swept up ready for them to make some more.

Oh dear, Jerry and Roswell are trying to have "guy-time" (not THAT sort!) and Custard doesn't like it so she's flapping at Jerry to make him go away. She's got her way as usual and has followed Roswell to the seed-pots for some dinner.

Some vids from earlier:

Who da Pretty Boyz?

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

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.

[gallery]

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

[gallery]

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

[gallery]

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!

[gallery]