While Harley remains enamored of Lunch On A Skewer, and totally in love with breakfast, dinner has become less and less interesting to him. We give him a plate, but usually he pretty much ignores it and nags us until Bruce caves in and brings him over to the table, where he turns into Helen Keller before Anne Sullivan taught her some manners. Cheese, corn, and the occasional green bean get eaten, and everything else gets tossed out of his way. Bruce thinks this is cute, and important flock behavior. Me: not so much. So the moment something gets tossed to the floor I bring him over to his tree, and give him dessert. And yeah, that's another story, so we'll just leave it at that.

At any rate, in the midst of this waning interest in dinner, these past few days the humans in the house haven't exactly been eating dinner, and certainly not at our usual schedule. So we put a plate of food in front of Harley, he almost immediately ignores it (perhaps because we're not nearby eating ourselves), and starts demanding dessert.

Since Lunch On A Skewer has been going over so well — I should say, Harley loves Lunch On A Skewer, he goes crazy for Lunch On A Skewer, he nags for Lunch On A Skewer — tonight I decided to scoop his untouched dinner into a coffee filter and put it on a skewer.

Success! He ate a cherry tomato and then he emptied the filter of all the food. You know, dropping most of it on the floor. But still. And he even waited awhile before he started nagging me for dessert. Siiiiiiiigh. Not sure what the future will bring, it'll depend a bit on Bruce and my eating schedule, I suppose. And Harley's weight is starting to creep up, so we'll have to figure out how to keep that in check. But so far, I'll call it a success.

This photo is yesterday's lunch:

Our cherry tomato plant has produced two fruits so far. Harley has now eaten destroyed both of them.

Breakfast is Harley's most important meal of the day, since that's when he's hungriest. Dinner is Harley's most important meal of the day, since that's when he's likeliest to get cheese, or some other naughty bit of food. And lunch is Harley's most important meal of the day, since that's when he's most likely to play with his food. In some ways, lunch should be his least important meal of the day, since many bird people don't think these creatures really need three full meals a day. But Bruce and I are working from home, and if we're eating, Harley has to eat too. However, our lunch schedule is rarely as regular as breakfast and dinner, so rather than give Harley a plate of peas, lunch has grown into Fun With A Skewer.

I give him a combination of lightly sprouted grains and seeds, cooked beans, and minced vegetables, usually placed in a coffee filter, with various chunks of vegetables stung onto a skewer. The game is definitely "I MUST REMOVE ALL THE LITTLE BITS FROM INSIDE THE BROWN PAPER," and occasionally "LET ME DRINK THESE VEGETABLE CHUNKS WHILE I'M HERE." But he's really grown to love this game. He might not actually be eating much more of the healthy stuff during lunch than breakfast or dinner, but he spends more time with the good food. So that's a plus.

Sometimes, it's the usual mash in a special dish — although if memory serves me correctly, there was probably something covering this paper dish. A rice cake? A lettuce leaf?


Vegetables that Harley usually ignores get chomped on the skewer.


This half of a sweet pepper got pretty well torn up, seeds and all.


Look, even hot peppers can be fun!


Lately I've been putting the mash mix into two coffee filters, to give Harley more work, and then adding a chunk or two of vegetable. Here's another shot of Harley the day we got the new air conditioner, with the two coffee filters.


But sometimes I'll roll a spoon of the mash up in a big lettuce leaf, or — in this case — a leaf of chard.


Come to think of it, now that Fun With A Skewer has become a daily event, I should probably weigh Harley. (Something I should do a bit more regularly than I already do.) Hopefully, he hasn't gained much weight.

Oh, and really — Snacks is Harley's most important meal of the day. Really, what was I thinking?

So Tuesday was a day full of excitement. Two Wee Men came and spent most of the day doing Important Things inside and outside. Most of it outside.

For the most part, Harley was unimpressed by the Wee Men and their activity, maybe because he'd seen it all when the first Wee Man tested things out? Instead, he took full advantage of all the commotion to get extra Snacks of Placating, and almost unlimited attention from the humans in the house (that weren't Wee Men). The one chunk of time he was in his cage he took a bath, which — if you've been reading this blog for awhile — you will know hardly ever happens. Clearly, I'm going to have to invite the Wee Men over more often!

Even The Biggest Cardboard Box In The World didn't excite him. He just calmly ate his lunch, and then turned into Fussy McFussypants.


His favorite perch in our bedroom window didn't interest him, the guest room didn't interest him, even the Closet of Magical Things didn't interest him — he was tired of it by the time I brought the camera upstairs.

(Hm. Extra points if you can spot the underpants!)

The closet was probably boring because we put him there on his portable perch, instead of letting him explore things in the drawers like we did last time. You know, things like chewy, chewy shirts.


So he explored the bed for awhile, and chewed up our comforter instead.


(Apologies for these last two photos: apparently I'm incapable of taking decent pictures of textiles. That shirt is tan, and the blanket is a light green. Yes, really. Not even Photoshop could get the colors close to reality.)

Once we rescued the comforter, Harley deigned to sit with Bruce for a few minutes.


But, once he realized he couldn't reach any good drugs, he started fussing again.


Fussy, Fussy, Fussy McFussypants. I'm pretty sure he gained a few grams, with all the Snacks of Placating we ended up giving him. Finally, though, he settled in on his perch in the bedroom, content to watch the Wee Men's truck. Because you never know what a truck might do if it's left unwatched. After all.


The air conditioner is installed and the Wee Men tested it out, but wouldn't you know — the weather has been in the low to mid 70s since Tuesday so we haven't actually needed it on. Not that I'm complaining, we don't get weather like this in Michigan very often!

We had a Wee Man in yesterday to give the air conditioner a once-over. Harley loved the show!

The Wee Man was surprised we actually thought the thing was working. Which either shows how little we expect from modern appliances, or how much he's hoping to sell a new one.

Little does he know how much we spoil Harley, and how willing we are to provide him with entertainment. Are you kidding? A new air conditioner? BRING IT ON!

And speaking of household mechanicals, did you know we were supposed to get our new water tank inspected? Well, neither did we.

Often when I'm out at the studio, Bruce and Harley get together and eat snacks in their underwear while watching birdie porn. You know, you dial up YouTube on the internets and look up "parrot." Wink wink, nudge nudge.

Turns out an iPad is the perfect viewing device for birdie porn.

This video of two loud and talkative ringnecks is a big favorite around here. So much kissing going on! Oh my! This never fails to amuse us. ALL. EVERY TIME.

Snowball the dancing cockatoo is also pretty entertaining.

(Why yes, I do have some Photoshop skillz. Thanks for asking.)

Snowball has a lot of videos on YouTube, as does Einstein, the talking African Grey (Einstein has even been on the TV!). We can get "lost" on YouTube for hours, watching birdie porn.

Here are a few more videos we've found that you may not know about. Enjoy!

The absolute classic, in my opinion, is "You are being shagged by a rare parrot."

This is a clip from a BBC program about rare animals called "Last Chance To See." This segment was filmed in New Zealand, with host Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine. And a very handsome, and apparently a very lonely, kakapo named Sirocco.

Wikipedia's entry on the kakapo says that as of February 2010, there are only 123 of these parrots known to be in existence. So enjoy Sirocco while you can.

Another classic is the lyrebird, which is capable of mimicking an amazing array of sounds. Here are two videos, one with David Attenborough, and another from the Adelaide Zoo.

YouTube has quite a few videos of lyrebirds, just do a search and have some fun.

This next little movie shows two cockatoos, Kiya and Romey, getting to know each other. The video is entitled "I wanna hold your hand." For reasons that will soon become obvious. Adorable! Although not actually one of Harley's favorites.

This is an amazing segment of an eagle owl COMING RIGHT AT YOU filmed with a "New Photron SA-2 High Definition High Speed Camera" back in 2008.

We do NOT show this one to Harley.

French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot created an installation earlier this year in The Curve, Barbican, London, that featured a walk-though aviary for a flock of zebra finches, furnished with musical instruments. My favorite part of this excerpt from Ariane Michel's movie is at about 47 seconds, which shows a female trying to build a nest in the electric guitar strings.

The Death Metal Rooster. 'Nuff said.
This is a clip from one of those always-entertaining Japanese TV shows that sets out to see if animals (including one bird) can navigate their way to a bowl of food without knocking down any dominoes. The winner (not the bird) is pretty amazing!

And finally, I'm getting a little tired of grabbing screen shots, so here's a little list of a few more. This is my favorite video of Oscar, the naked cockatoo at the Humane Society of Broward County. Andrew Zuckerman has several lovely videos on Vimeo. Here's a link to a short film created to accompany his Bird book. Wow.

And, a couple of non-bird videos: A hedgehog eating a carrot. Yum! A slow loris that really loves to be tickled. Almost as adorable as Harley. Here's a toad that likes to get tickled. And believe it or not, here's another one! And another one!

Although Harley is able to fly pretty well these days, he doesn't usually choose to. Instead he relies on the humans to figure out that he wants to be somewhere else (usually pretty easy since he asks if "you ready" about a thousand times in a row), and then where he wants to be (not always so easy, since uses "you ready" or "you ready for bed" for just about anything he means). He has slipped off the Harley Bar a couple of times and successfully landed on the table. But most often, if he flies, he gets startled off of one location, and then manages to get himself to another.

Today, for the first time, he landed on my head.

One of Peanut's favorite places to be was on my head. You can click here to pop up a picture. Apart from the occasional poop (although not many, since birds tend to keep their favorite spots pretty clean), it was one of my favorite places, too. Harley is much heavier, of course, but it was pretty fun to have him up there for a few minutes.

The article "Pudgy Birds May Migrate Faster" was posted on the LiveScience site on February 17, and it's been picked up by a few online papers since then. There didn't seem to be too many birds involved in the study to me (only 20), but I'm sure standards for migratory research don't need to be nearly as stringent as they do for human drug testing. For instance.

The research suggests that chubby migratory birds can reach their breeding grounds faster by taking shorter breaks — since they have bigger fat reserves, and don't have to stop as long for food. The researchers found that fat birds usually move on the night of their arrival at a stopping point, while thin birds remain at the stopping point for an average of almost two days.

That's pretty interesting, in and of itself. But what's really fascinating is how the British paper The Register spun the story. Their article was titled "Fat birds get laid sooner, have more one-night stands." And the article was filled with vocabulary like "chubbies" and "wobblebottomed." Which makes me think I ought to be reading The Register more often. My kind of spin.

I'm sure I've mentioned our breakfast bar, better known as Harley's Bar. I don't think I've taken a particularly useful photo of it, and I won't now — since the camera is far away, and I'm a lazy slug. But it is home to Harley's dog dish (which holds any number of toys that can be dropped into the sink or on the floor), it is home to several toys upon which Harley can Stand And Chew, it is where he eats dinner and (usually) lunch, and it is a step away from the kitchen faucet, one of Harley's favorite perches. It also places the creature with the Sharp Beak of Biting right where he can chew up a corner of wall. Which he has done. Of course.

So some time ago now (because I am a lazy slug), Bruce created our first Harley Protection Device, in the form of a wooden sleeve that wraps around the wall, so Harley can't eat the corner anymore.

Right. We may need to make this a little taller.

Gotta add that I pulled this last photo up on the screen and Bruce and I could not stop laughing.

Oh, and in case these details help fill in the picture of the Harley Bar: the "terra cotta" color in the first picture is around the corner (in the kitchen area) of the second picture. And, in the second picture, Harley is standing on some toys upon which he can Stand And Chew.

Harley remains interested in Fish — primarily when he can drink the water.

This is not a good idea, of course, so we're thinking of getting a slightly bigger fish tank, with an actual filter system, so that we don't have to clear out some water every day or so. Oh, sure, we could stop over-feeding him, or something like that. Not sure what to do.

Any ideas out there in The Land Of The Internets?

Meanwhile, look at that water!

Um, try to ignore the dirty dish. Thanks.

We don't do much about Christmas around here, but some of the people around us do, so we've had quite a few boxes at the house lately. Harley loves them.

The bigger the better!

It's already 2010 in places like South Korea and England, so: Happy New Year! We had a pretty good 2009 here — well, I didn't do so well selling jewelry, but still we did pretty well overall. But, many people on the planet had a hard time. So here's hoping your 2010 is full of tasty seeds, big boxes, and a little less stress than 2009.

You never know what you might find inside that next box.