+1 for the Menagerie

About a week ago, Hambone noticed a bird in his warehouse. Not just any ordinary bird, but a genuine Cockatiel. So, being the Bird Whisperer, (see earlier posts about his ability to woo the geese at Dutch Wonderland) he lured the Cockatiel into a cardboard box, then into a dog crate, and then a bird cage in succession. After getting to know this bird a bit, I see what a feat this was.

So the bird is a beautiful addition to the household. But, since it was a pet that then escaped and had "God knows what" happen to it in the wild, and then had a day-long adventure with Hambone, I can see where it is legitimately a little weird.

And the weird runs deep, man. For instance, the bird loves to look at itself in a mirror, and the bigger the mirror the better. If you remove the mirror, the bird SCREAMS until the mirror is restored, and then when he sees himself in the mirror again, he makes a noise like "Hey buddy, I missed you. What's been happening since we last spoke?"

He is also pretty bad at flying. When he did try it one day in the house, he tried to land on the moldings above the doors. In order to make this tricky landing, he crashed his whole body into the wall and sort of stuck his feet down. And then because there are no mirrors up there, he just screamed the whole time until he got back into his cage.

 The boys (all of them except for the dogs) LOVE the bird. We have named him "Bob" but Hamslice also calls him "silver wing" which is a favorite Pokemon character (or something). They love cleaning the cage and feeding him and just watching him. They can't play with this pet, though, because if they stick their fingers in the cage, the bird does a full-body peck. Even though that doesn't hurt very much, the visual is stunning.

The bird also really can't stand certain kinds of voices. I have my phone on speaker all day, and when certain people call (uncle Curt in particular) the bird starts chattering away. When I have conference calls, therefore, the bird cage has to move into the kitchen where, you guessed it, there are no mirrors. So during the conference call there is constant, faint screaming in the background.  I wonder if they notice.

So... bird. +1 to the pet list.