Flock expansion

Polli does his best to acknowledge the new arrival to the flock

Spot the real bird

Hatchdate! Parrolito is 2 years old today

 The "cake" 

Birthday breakfast 

Birthday present: a "new" blackberry to destroy!

Parrolito Art Critic

We flew in an au-pair from Argentina to take care of Parrolito while we spend the month in the US. Attempts at producing a portrait have once again failed miserably.

Nature maths

Amortization of Parrotlet: Real costs scenario

-$100
Parrotlet, on sale. "Sweet" parrotlet going cheap, probably because he was as tamed as a winged bitey crocodile.

+$10
Reliable alarm function. Gets activated at 7.15am regardless of settings. Has no off button.

+$10
Egg-timer for nap, see above.

+$15
Potted plant fertilizer.

+$7
Specialty groceries. Potted plant fertilizing has inadvertently started a crop of indoor potted millet. Will update on progress.

= bites

Things that unhinge the delicate parrotlet mind II: Food edition

Things that unhinge the delicate parrotlet mind II: Food edition

Edamame: ran to the top perch, making "predator" alarm tweets for 2 minutes

Raspberry: did not approach food dish for 24 hours after the first recon mission identified a raspberry behind the piece of broccoli

The hand that feeds

Update
dry figs: elixir of the Gods
fresh figs: spawn of the devil

App for Parrotlet: "Peaceful Pond"

Falcon Fest

Falcons are always so poised and in control, like some kind of super processor is managing the bird thing. At the falcon souq, falcons patiently watch us come and go from their fancy perches, monitoring our every move with military precision. It's like the falcon brain's only purpose is to assess the feasibility of something becoming prey. I did some Qbasic back in grade school, and this is the way I imagine falcons were programed by the Cylons:
                                                                                                        Y = Attack!
IF moving object smaller than Falcon <                                                                   N = Hypnotize                                                                                                                                                                                   
Go google some images of falcons, and know that this is so. Falcons don't look cute. Falcons don't derp. Falcons are the Sauron eye of winged things, blessed with a ratio of eye-to-brain size that makes little sense.

All this to say that the Qatar annual Falcon Festival took place this month somewhere in the desert. We were tanking around dunes when we saw the signs. How on EARTH did they manage to find the one and only falcon in the world that looks so, so... lacking in chromosomal coherence, so to speak?

"What planet is this...?"

Infinite adorableness

Parrolito comes out of the cage to say hi to "the other bird"

Things that unhinge the delicate parrotlet mind:

bells, obviously

water bottles in the vicinity of the cage, less obviously

hands

Parrotlet grows up, still questions gravity

It appears that spending the entire Christmas holiday with a pair of African Greys, the most intelligent parrots in the world, has not helped clarify this whole gravity thing.