Merry Christmas

Here I am enjoying a special treat I got for Christmas -- a seed treat! Yummy! I hope your holidays are splendid and that you get to enjoy lots of treats, too!

White

OK, that scary snow is back again, sliding off the roof with big "whumps!" and making everything outside all white. It would be dangerous for a little green parrot like me to go outside at a time like this. Think how easy it would be for a predator to spot me in my pretty green feathers. I understand there are some animals out there that turn white in the winter time for that very reason. While I am sure that is a strategy that works very well for them, I have to wonder: Why bother? Why go to all the trouble of changing color when you could just stay inside out of harm's way? And on top of getting to stay your normal color, you would get to be in a warm place with a full food dish. It works for me! Well, there's just no understanding some animals.

Bibliophile

You may be surprised to learn that a humble green parrot such as myself is a big lover of books, but I actually am. My taste in books is quite broad. I love all kinds of books -- fiction, nonfiction, you name it. But if anyone asks me what my favorite kind of book is, it's easy for me to answer. Next to the books my person writes, my favorite books are the big, thick ones with lots and lots of pages. They offer the best chewing pleasure. What are some of your favorite books?

Cookies!

Do you like December? I do, mostly because it's the holiday season and that's when my person makes gingerbread cookies. Yummy! I just love gingerbread cookies.Well, I love any kind of cookie, but my favorite kind of all is gingerbread. That's because gingerbread is so chewable, and we parrots love to chew. Also, my person always makes a few small gingerbread men just for me to eat. She's never made me any gingerbread parrots though. Hmmm. I wonder why.

A Book About Pancakes

Do you like pancakes? I love pancakes. I pretty much love eating anything that's starchy or floury -- bread, cookies, cereal, you name it. Pancakes are especially nice because my person usually puts blueberries or blackberries in them, and berries are full of something else I love -- seeds! So, the point is, because I love pancakes so much I can't be too jealous that my person's newest book is not about parrots, because it is about pancakes, and who could be unhappy about pancakes? Not me! The book is called The Naughty Pancake and you can read about it here. OK, so there's one problem with the book, for me, at least, -- it doesn't have any pages to chew. That's because it's an ebook. But even tho' you can't chew it, you can read the story and look at the pictures, and they're pretty nice.

Thankful

It's that thankful time of year again and time for my annual Thanksgiving post. This year I am thankful that I have a nice, big food dish and a person who always keeps it full. I am thankful that I have seed treats and a person who gives them to me every day. I am thankful that there is a furnace in the house that keeps me warm all winter and that I don't have to fly south for the winter like some of those outside birds.  I am thankful to be a parrot and not a robin so I get to eat seeds and fruit inside in my cage and not worms outside in the mud. And, most of all, at this time of year I am thankful to be a parrot and not a turkey.

Rainy Afternoon

How I love a rainy afternoon! It's the perfect time to share a piece of toast with my person, then sit on her shoulder and snuggle up to her neck. It's just so cozy, and it's especially nice if there's blackberry jam on the toast. What about you? How do you like to spend a rainy afternoon?

Seasonal Poetry: The Final Installment

Here's the last in my suite of seasonal poems:

Summer
by Shadow

The hot summer sun's
Not very much fun.
It makes a whole lot of heat.
But I find, as a rule,
It's not hard to stay cool
With a nice icy spritz on my feet.

Obsession

You know how you get something in your head and you just can't stop thinking about it? If you're a parrot, you know exactly what I'm talking about. For me these days it's the desk drawer. I always keep one eye alert for any movement my person makes in the direction of that drawer. Then when she puts her hand on it to pull it open, I'm right there, ready to pounce on the drawer's delicious contents -- paper clips, pens, and tape measure. It's so much fun to toss those things around. I know it makes my person mad when I do that, but I just can't help myself. If the drawer's been closed for a while, I reach down and pull on the handle. I pull and pull, listening to the creaking noise it makes and waiting for my person to take the hint and open the drawer. If she doesn't get it, then pretty soon I have to start squawking. It's really hard just sitting there in front of a closed drawer knowing what delicious treats are waiting for me inside, if only my person would hurry up and OPEN THE DRAWER already!

More Seasonal Poetry

Spring
by Shadow

The outside birds sing
Their greetings to spring:
Cheep cheep chirrup chirp cheer.
But my kind of talking's
A very loud squawking.
It's pleasanter to the ear.

Fall Poetry

Continuing with my suite of seasonal poems, I present you with this poem about fall:


Fall
by Shadow

In early fall
The little birds call,
"Migration time is near."
Then off they race
To a warmer place.
As for me, I stay right here.

Winter Poetry

Winter
by Shadow

Winter's not nice.
There's snow and there's ice,
And violent winds rage.
But I don't care
What happens out there.
I'm warm inside my cage.

The Latest Parrot Poetry

Pretty Bird

by Shadow

Birds may be blue, or black, or red.

These are colors that I’ve seen.

But the prettiest bird in all the world

Is the bird with feathers green.

Little birds sitting in a row

Make a lovely scene.

But the loveliest bird in all the world

Is the bird with feathers green.

A crested bird proud on a branch

May be beautiful as a queen.

But the beautifulest bird in all the world

Is the bird with feathers green.

A Fun Place to Play

You know what one of my favorite places to play is? A desk drawer. My person has a desk drawer that's full of the most wonderful toys -- pencils, paper clips, notebooks, and lots of other stuff, too. I love picking up the paper clips and tossing them around. I try to see how many I can get to land outside the drawer and fall on the floor. That's lots of fun. And when I'm done with that, I like to pounce on the measuring tape and pick it up and shake it around. Then I look for something nice to chew like a pencil or a notebook cover. I have to warn you, though, if your person sees you throwing paper clips on the floor or chewing the cover of her favorite notebook, she'll probably put you back in your cage and slam the drawer shut and then sulk around for a while. I speak from experience.

Fright Flight

OMG. You won't believe what I saw the other day. My heart is pounding just thinking about it. I was hanging out peacefully in the kitchen, sitting on my person's shoulder, when all of a sudden I saw it: A huge hawk, right in our driveway! Of course I took off right away, flying as fast as I could in the other direction. I didn't stop to look where I was going, I just wanted to get away as fast as I could when, suddenly, bam! I slammed into the picture window and dropped to the floor. Ooooooooh, that hurt. That's an experience I don't certainly don't want to have again. My person rushed over and picked me up. I was so shaken I had to spend the rest of the afternoon hiding in my person's shirt. Of course, while I was flying away, my person just stood there like a big doofus. I hope she realizes how lucky she is that the hawk didn't eat her up. Anyway, we are both safe and sound now, but I will be keeping an extra careful watch out for hawks from now on.

Applesauce!

Here I am eating some delicious applesauce that my person made. Yum!  It feels so smooth and sweet on my beak. I think homemade applesauce is my very favorite treat, next to homegrown sunflower seeds, of course. September is such a great time of year because that's when all these tasty treats come out of the garden.What about you? What treats do you like to eat at this time of year?

Winter Feast

Look what I get to eat this winter! My person grows these sunflowers in her garden, then she dries them and lets me eat the seeds all winter. I get to pick the seeds right out of the flower head. Yum! There's nothing I like better than sunflower seeds.

Exercise

Don't you just love exercise? I exercise frequently with my person. My favorite way to do it is with an exercise machine. I sit on my person's shoulder while she uses the machine. The best part is all the squeaks and groans the machine makes. I just love listening to them. My person usually stops exercising after a while, but I could go on and on forever. It's so much fun. The other way I like to exercise is by taking a walk. I ride in my carrier while my person does the walking. I get to listen to all the wonderful outside sounds: birds, insects, rushing water, rustling leaves. It's all so wonderful. The only part I don't like is when a scary car rushes by or when a dog barks at us. But mostly walking is fun. Exercise is just about my favorite part of the day. What about you? Do you like to exercise?

Back from Vacation

So here's another thing I don't get -- vacations. I just returned from one and I'm left feeling: "Huh?" Not that I had a bad time or anything. My person dropped me off at Trouble's house, where I sat around in my cage for a week wondering why I was there. Trouble's person fed me melons and grapes (which, by the way, my own person almost NEVER feeds me at home), so that part was good. But the rest was rather ho hum. I just stayed in my cage and chewed and squawked and did all the usual things. So, aside from those melons and grapes, I'm wondering why people think vacations are such a big deal. They're not much different from staying home. I don't know where my person was all week. I'm guessing at someone else's house eating melons and grapes.

Spring Migrants

The migratory birds are coming back, and while I'm happy to have so many noisy tweety birds around, I have to wonder...what's the point? That whole migration business seems like a big waste of time to me. I know I've blogged about this before, but I still don't get it. Those migratory birds fly thousands of miles just so they can spend the winter in a warm place with a lot of food. Well, I do the same thing, and I don't have to fly anywhere to do it. I just stay in my nice warm cage and let my person keep my food dish full. I don't know why those other birds don't do the same. Seems a lot easier to me. Sure, I can't go outside all winter, but so what? Outside isn't always so great anyhow. There are lots of predators and big scary cars and other unpleasant things out there. So, personally, I can't see that migration brings any great benefits that are worth the trouble of all that flying.

Obedience

I've posted this request before, but I need to ask again: Does anyone have any tips for training my person? Sometimes it's just so hard to get her to listen, no matter how loudly I squawk. So the other day after she was poking around my cage with the vacuum cleaner, as if that wasn't bad enough, she took my cage off its shelf, then shook out the cloth that covers the shelf. So of course when she tried to put the cloth back I had to walk all around it and chew and poke just to make sure everything was all right. She kept telling me to get out of the way so she could put everything back straight.  She said, "It's just a cloth." Just a cloth! I can't seem to make her understand that once she puts something close to my cage, next to it or underneath it, then it becomes my territory, and I am bound by the parrot code to do everything possible to protect my territory. And that vacuum cleaner! I don't know why she can't keep that nasty roaring thing in the closet where it belongs, or better yet, get it out of the house entirely. But every time I try to suggest this, she just tells me to stop squawking and biting. Sheesh! So if anyone can help me out with any person training tips, I would really appreciate it.

Happy Hatch Day to Me!!

My hatch day is coming up very soon and today I received the most wonderful hatch day gift from my person's aunt. Does that make her my aunt too? Or my great aunt? Whatever, she certainly is a great aunt! She knows about my telephone book shredding talents, so she sent me the perfect gift -- a telephone book to shred! I know this is a telephone book I will really enjoy shredding. By the way, in case you are wondering, I am about to turn 16. That makes me a very wise and experienced parrot indeed.

Parrot Poetry: The Birds of Spring

The Birds of Spring
by Shadow

The chickadee goes chi-chi-chi,
The robin goes chirrup,
But no bird sings as beautifully
As a parrot with its squawk.

Caw and quack and tweet and chirp
Is how the other birds talk,
But no bird sounds as lov-e-ly
As a parrot with its squawk.

Telephones

Do you have telephones in your house? We do, and I think they're just wonderful. First of all, whenever one gets dialed, it makes the most interesting beeping noises, and I beep right along with them. Also, my person talks to the telephone frequently, and I just love the sound of her voice when she does that. I snuggle up under her chin and chirp and coo while she talks. Last night while we were
doing this, the telephone started talking to me! It said, "Hi, Shadow. Pretty bird. Pretty bird." So I said "Pretty bird" right back to it! Then I noticed the buttons on the phone and reached out my beak to chew one, but before I could get even one bite, my person moved the phone away. Then she put me in my cage. Hmmmph! I keep thinking about all those delicious buttons just waiting to be chewed. One day I'll find a way to get my beak on them. You'll see. Anyhow, I just love telephones and I think every house should have at least one.

Table Manners

OK, that gray parrot, Trouble, may know how to talk, but she doesn't know how to eat right. She has no table manners at all. My person let her come to the breakfast table the other day and what you think she did? She just stuck her beak in the cereal bowl and started flinging cereal all over the place. Me, I never fling. When I eat cereal, I let the crumbs drop to the floor, and when I am done nibbling on a piece, I let that drop to the floor, too, before I pick up another one. That's what floors are for. Duh.

Guest Blogger: Trouble

Shadow has kindly allowed me to write a guest post on her blog while I am staying at her house this week. As you can see from the photo, I am having a wonderful time here. For two nights in a row, Shadow's person has served me the most delicious dessert -- ice cream topped with whipped cream. Yummy! I just love sticking my beak into those soft mounds of whipped cream. The ice cream is pretty good, too. Actually, it's really frozen yogurt. It's made just down the road from here at Cobb Hill. My favorite flavor is peppermint chocolate chip (Shadow's person removes the chocolate chips from my servings). Actually, that's the only flavor I've had so far. But I wouldn't mind having it every night for a week. I hope I get to! So, my person can stay out of town as long as he wants. OK, I don't really mean that. I miss him, but eating Cobb Hill frozen yogurt kind of makes up for his absence.

New Business

Since I am a parrot of many talents, I've decided that I might as well put some of my talents to use, so I am starting my own small parrot business. Have you been wondering what to do with all those old telephone books you have lying around the house? Well, wonder no more. Just contact Shadow's Telephone Book Shredding Service. I will gladly come to your house and shred all the old telephone books you have lying around. Then you can use the pieces as packing material or compost filler or, and I recommend this the most, just let it fly all around your house. It looks really cool. I guarantee highly professional service. I am a skilled and experienced telephone book shredder, and you can see an example of my recent work in the photo.