It took four psychologists (including Irene Pepperberg), two parrots face to face (including Alex, now deceased), and hundreds of YouTube videos, but they've finally proven that birds got rhythm!

This video was taken the same night as LWC Part 1, so I'm calling it 1b.

( Video! )

In case you were wondering what happens when two caiques crawl all over you, it looks something like this:

( With a capital T, and that rhymes with C, and that stands for caique. )

For those of you who don't know of her, Barbara Heidenreich is one of the foremost positive-reinforcement parrot trainers. She's written several excellent books on parrot training and behavior management and has put out a series of three DVDs that demonstrate how to use positive techniques to train parrots. The first DVD covers basic training, the ( Read more... )

Here's a typical scene of my two caiques flying around the house. Daedalus spends some time sitting on the couch looking out the window, while Icarus wants to spend most of his time on me. :P This video shows one of the best behaviors I've taught my caiques: Flying home on cue and pooping there.

Click to view

(x-posted to caiques, parrots101, and my journal)

Here's the second installment of my Life With Caiques series. :) This one shows a more typical caique energy level.

Check out Daedalus' awesome flying maneuver where she flies off to the right side of the screen, turns sharply in midair, and flies over to the coconut toy on the left of the screen! They've become such awesome little fliers.

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And ( Read more... )

I've been trying to take some video of what it's like to live with two flighted caiques. Unfortunately, usually when I think of it, it's evening and the birds are tuckered out and almost ready for bed. Oh well!

Here is installment one, a typical evening scene in our house:

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And a quick, funny bonus video of Icarus helping me knit:

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(x-posted to ( Read more... )

Here are a few videos of my birds being cute. I had to share! :)

Daedalus plays "peekabo":

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( 3 more! )

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The most talented toucan I've seen! [x-posted at parrot_lovers]

Okay, so I wrote the other day about my cage search. Needless to say, the guy was an absolute jerk and was completely rude. I asked him about it and he goes "its a parrot cage" so I wrote him again about dimensions, rust/chipped paint, etc. and he replies, "if you want to see it ( Read more... )

Not sure if anyone has seen this, but I thought I'd post it here ( Read more... )