Cockatiel night terrors
I haven't been sleeping that well for the past few days. This happens sometimes, and I deal, but last night I got a fright that almost seemed like one of my awake-dreams at first.
I was *just* about asleep after struggling for an hour. This included counting numbers up by threes as well as working on a really simple composition I've had bouncing around for a few years. Anyway, I'm just about gone when suddenly Kirby is on the floor for no apparent reason. I'm not sure I heard her fall. I don't know what was going on. What I do know is that when I first became semi-conscious, I found myself holding my TV remotes. Like, I don't even know why, like somehow I was going to zap away whatever was causing the issue. And my glasses, I don't know what happened to them, but they ended up over from where they normally were, then on the floor; I think that was where I picked them up. I think my brain went to there being mice or something, because that's always in the back of my head. This does not appear to be the case, but seriously, brain no worky right then.
Meanwhile, Kirby was on the ground, and freaking out, and I can't tell you if something honest to God freaked her out or if perhaps she was trying to do something and simply fell. Lord only knows. But she was on the paper on the floor directly under her cage, and then she ended up on the plastic bag holding a mouse trap, and for those of you who wondered why I refused to use mouse poison when things were active in my room, this would be why--as rarely as Kirby ends up on the floor, she does get there, and I neither want her ingesting something accidentally nor touching something that could rub off and cause issues with her. As it was, her being near the trap--which, mind you, is completely closed off and she's too big to enter it--combined with my not-awake status completely freaked me out, and I think I somehow tossed her away from it, which probably freaked her out even more than she was, and she was totally running under my bed, and I'm grabbing at her, and eventually she comes by me and I try calming her down, but it took a while; she was very clingy and kept trying to run around on me whereas I just wanted to hold her and calm her down, which also helped me to calm back down. It took a few minutes. Poor baby.
I ended up grabbing a flashlight and shining it around her cage; I didn't see anything. But when I went to put her back, there was a decent-sized spider on the door very close to where I was going to put her. Ew. Perhaps that was what freaked her out? Hmm. It wasn't *that* big, but it wasn't tiny, and movement she's not expecting, particularly in the dark, does scare her. I ended up putting her on her swing directly, then went to the bathroom--because, yeah--and when I came back she got off her swing and tried to climb down, except she went by the door instead of the back of the cage, where there's a solid wall, and she about fell again. Since the door was open, there wasn't anything for her to climb down, and she was just dangling there. Doofus. I ended up holding her while she tried to orient herself, and she basically did a few yoga moves before maneuvering herself down. She eventually went on top of her cage, where she flipped out at the shadows the flashlight cast, but I was like, uh-uh, no, you're spending the night inside in case you freak out again. Back on her swing, close the door, that's where she stayed. I eventually fell asleep, but I'm tired today. She seems fine, though she was facing the wrong way on her swing when I opened her cage. She's a creature of habit, so that was unusual, but at least she didn't fall again. Realize she fell last week, too, after she let go during a flapping session and briefly landed on her back on my CD player before plopping to the ground, so I don't know what's up. She's molting a lot, so maybe she molted part of her little brain when I wasn't looking.
I was *just* about asleep after struggling for an hour. This included counting numbers up by threes as well as working on a really simple composition I've had bouncing around for a few years. Anyway, I'm just about gone when suddenly Kirby is on the floor for no apparent reason. I'm not sure I heard her fall. I don't know what was going on. What I do know is that when I first became semi-conscious, I found myself holding my TV remotes. Like, I don't even know why, like somehow I was going to zap away whatever was causing the issue. And my glasses, I don't know what happened to them, but they ended up over from where they normally were, then on the floor; I think that was where I picked them up. I think my brain went to there being mice or something, because that's always in the back of my head. This does not appear to be the case, but seriously, brain no worky right then.
Meanwhile, Kirby was on the ground, and freaking out, and I can't tell you if something honest to God freaked her out or if perhaps she was trying to do something and simply fell. Lord only knows. But she was on the paper on the floor directly under her cage, and then she ended up on the plastic bag holding a mouse trap, and for those of you who wondered why I refused to use mouse poison when things were active in my room, this would be why--as rarely as Kirby ends up on the floor, she does get there, and I neither want her ingesting something accidentally nor touching something that could rub off and cause issues with her. As it was, her being near the trap--which, mind you, is completely closed off and she's too big to enter it--combined with my not-awake status completely freaked me out, and I think I somehow tossed her away from it, which probably freaked her out even more than she was, and she was totally running under my bed, and I'm grabbing at her, and eventually she comes by me and I try calming her down, but it took a while; she was very clingy and kept trying to run around on me whereas I just wanted to hold her and calm her down, which also helped me to calm back down. It took a few minutes. Poor baby.
I ended up grabbing a flashlight and shining it around her cage; I didn't see anything. But when I went to put her back, there was a decent-sized spider on the door very close to where I was going to put her. Ew. Perhaps that was what freaked her out? Hmm. It wasn't *that* big, but it wasn't tiny, and movement she's not expecting, particularly in the dark, does scare her. I ended up putting her on her swing directly, then went to the bathroom--because, yeah--and when I came back she got off her swing and tried to climb down, except she went by the door instead of the back of the cage, where there's a solid wall, and she about fell again. Since the door was open, there wasn't anything for her to climb down, and she was just dangling there. Doofus. I ended up holding her while she tried to orient herself, and she basically did a few yoga moves before maneuvering herself down. She eventually went on top of her cage, where she flipped out at the shadows the flashlight cast, but I was like, uh-uh, no, you're spending the night inside in case you freak out again. Back on her swing, close the door, that's where she stayed. I eventually fell asleep, but I'm tired today. She seems fine, though she was facing the wrong way on her swing when I opened her cage. She's a creature of habit, so that was unusual, but at least she didn't fall again. Realize she fell last week, too, after she let go during a flapping session and briefly landed on her back on my CD player before plopping to the ground, so I don't know what's up. She's molting a lot, so maybe she molted part of her little brain when I wasn't looking.