Post by beccilouise on Jan 12, 2017 15:17:55 GMT -5
...And so it begins! Now 18 months old, Maya's puberty seems to be in full swing. She goes through mental phases and then settles down a few days later. Recently, she went through a two week period where she bit me if I was wearing my glasses (she has now gotten over this). She has developed a fierce and unrelenting hatred of ANYTHING with a twisty lid, which includes water bottles, roll-on deoderant bottles and my thermos flask. If any of these appear, she will attack them enthusiastically. However, she is mortally afraid of the pull out tape measure, (David puts it beside him so she won't pester him while he's eating a yoghurt).
Recently, she has also started another behaviour I have read is popular with Quakers; the thievery of all things shiny. Yesterday, she nicked 20p from my partner's penny pot and flew around the room with it (I am aware there is zinc in coins so I took it off her pretty sharpish), this happened another three times before I relocated the penny pot. She's also learned how to unclasp my necklaces and is very excited every time I open the little container of nibs I use for my quills (I'm a poet, people expect quills). She also spends quite a lot of time exploring David's sailing trophies, though these are far too heavy for her to fly off with! Mostly, David and I find this hilarious, but we are having to be a lot more vigilant with her, particularly now that she is flighted!
However, it has to be said, she is a lot less irritable and much less noisy now that she is flighted. She still does do this thing where she'll fly off into a different room, land on a favourite perch and then call for someone to come and collect her. As much as possible, I'm trying to teach her that her humans are not a glorified taxi service and, if she wants to be in the same room with us, she needs to use her own transport! The kleptomania, however, is a new behaviour, so I will have to watch my jewellery from now on!
Recently, she has also started another behaviour I have read is popular with Quakers; the thievery of all things shiny. Yesterday, she nicked 20p from my partner's penny pot and flew around the room with it (I am aware there is zinc in coins so I took it off her pretty sharpish), this happened another three times before I relocated the penny pot. She's also learned how to unclasp my necklaces and is very excited every time I open the little container of nibs I use for my quills (I'm a poet, people expect quills). She also spends quite a lot of time exploring David's sailing trophies, though these are far too heavy for her to fly off with! Mostly, David and I find this hilarious, but we are having to be a lot more vigilant with her, particularly now that she is flighted!
However, it has to be said, she is a lot less irritable and much less noisy now that she is flighted. She still does do this thing where she'll fly off into a different room, land on a favourite perch and then call for someone to come and collect her. As much as possible, I'm trying to teach her that her humans are not a glorified taxi service and, if she wants to be in the same room with us, she needs to use her own transport! The kleptomania, however, is a new behaviour, so I will have to watch my jewellery from now on!
Most parronts have learned that it's wise to remove jewelry in their parrots' presence, which is preferable to chasing said parrots around the house to retrieve the stolen goods. Ralph especially likes my watch. He hasn't figured out yet how to remove it from my wrist, but he has often reset the time. 
