I have yet to introduce you to my other favorite parrot, Cracker, but I don't have any pictures of her and she deserves a lovely blog entry. And she really deserves a video of her crazy antics, but I can't figure out how to make the videos on my camera record sound. I will figure something out, she's a ridiculous bird.
Oh, and an update: OT, the palm cockatoo from my first entry, apparently has decided playing with me is not enough. Every time I go in there to give him enrichment and say hi, he refuses to come down - even for a walnut! Instead, he goes to a hole in a tree, sticks his head in, and looks at me to see if I'm watching. The first time this happened I got very confused and sad that he didn't want to play with me. I asked one of the keepers, Myra, if she knew what was going on, and she said, "Yes. That means he likes you. He wants to show you his hole."
Well then. I'm apparently a parrot heartbreaker. I guess I should be flattered, given the kind of guys that hit on me he's actually a step up. (I am referring, of course, to the infamous, "That's a lovely skirt. Where did you get it? I wanna buy it...and wear it..." dude.)
But back to the point. So this is Jake, a blue-fronted Amazon!
Jake is in one of the huge walk-through exhibits we have, so he doesn't wait for human attention like Cracker and OT. However, he loves enrichment too. The first time I went into the exhibit to give him something by myself - in this case, a wood block with slots that I stuck sunflower seeds into - he happened to be perched right above where I planned to hang his enrichment. He watched me very carefully as I tried to find a good place to put his toy, and to make conversation I said. "Hey Jake, what are you doing?""...What are YOU doing?" said a slightly feminine, whiny voice.
I was very shocked. As it turns out, that's pretty much the only thing Jake knows how to say, but the timing was awesome. It was almost as good as the first time I met Paprika, which I guess is a story to save for another entry. Anyway, Jake and I bonded as he took seeds out of his toy. We play the whistle game - he makes same kind of whistle, I imitate it; he does another one with a different tune, I try to repeat, etc. I think he likes this game because there is no way I can ever win. Eventually he does something that is just not possible for a human to repeat. But I try just the same.
Today I learned that Jake really likes when I stick sunflower seeds into a pear and put it in a little metal cage. He flew all the way from the top of the far side of the exhibit to come check it out when I got his attention, and he was very impatient as I found a place to hang it up. Cool bird.
The end!
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