A Parrot's Opinion

Sometimes in my capacity as a professional parrot I am asked to give my opinion on things pertaining to parrots. Recently, the Purina Company kindly sent me a bag of their new parrot food and asked me to write about it in my blog. They gave me the food, but the opinions expressed here are, as always, my own. We parrots may like to "parrot" things we hear, but I promise you my opinions are not "parroted" (in that sense of the term). Anyhow, I received a bag of Garden Recipe parrot food, for parrots and large conures (that's me!). I was very excited when I saw my person opening the bag as I knew it contained something tasty for me. I can recognize a bag of parrot food a mile away. I should explain that this is not the type of food I normally eat. My person feeds me pellets, fruit, and table food, so I am used to eating all kinds of people food, and I love it. But I am always up for checking out something new. I was excited to see what kind of new food the bag contained. It is a mixture of things, including pumpkin seeds, peanuts, dried fruit, dried corn, pellets, and things that look like Cheerios. And sunflower seeds. Sunflower seeds! My absolute favorite thing in the world to eat. I set to work right away picking out the sunflower seeds and eating them. When I had finished them all, I kept picking through the rest of the pile looking for more sunflower seeds and was very disappointed not to find anymore. So I just flew up to my person's shoulder and sat there forlornly. After eating the sunflower seeds, the rest of the mix just didn't interest me. Now, I know my tastes aren't the same as other parrots'. If you are a parrot who likes dried fruit (I never touch the stuff), dried corn, or those things that look like Cheerios, you'll find plenty to interest you in the Garden Recipe mix. Personally, I like pellets and even enjoy the occasional pumpkin seed, but if there are sunflower seeds around, why would I eat anything else? My person says that's why she doesn't feed me this type of mix. You want my opinion? I think that's mean. I don't mind if all that other stuff is there as long as I get to eat the sunflower seeds. But my person says I can only have those as an occasional treat. Humph! So I guess I'll be sticking to my usual diet and will only be seeing the Garden Recipe at treat time. I'll look forward to that.

Autumn

The first week of October is almost over, so I guess it really is autumn. Around here, that means that the summer chewing frenzy is long over and we're now well into molting season. The bottom of my cage is covered with little down feathers, and my body is covered with lots of pin feathers (the new feathers growing in). It certainly is an itchy experience! However, my person gives me frequent baths, and that helps. Autumn means winter is just around the corner and soon we'll be settling into a cozy season of listening to the furnace rumble and roar (the poor furnace was sick again a few weeks ago and had to have some surgery, but it seems to be feeling much better now, thank goodness), eating wild berry jam on toast, and watching the snow fall. I sure hope all my down feathers will have grown back by then!