Sunday, November 15, 2009

The Great Escape......


Jack Sparrow, our cockatiel, has been giving us trouble lately.  We have a couple of these wise guys who like to get out of their cage on their own.  I have had to move the birds out of one room into another for a temporary time, so they get a little more frisky.  Jack Sparrow and his female, Canola, had a hole made in the back of their cage, cut by me, so I could hang a nesting box on the back of the cage. They successfully raised a liter of two birds, and before I took the nest off of the back, they started another brood and had three more baby birds.  So at one time we had seven cockatiel birds greeting us each morning with all of their calls.  I gave two of them away, but I still have the parents in one cage and the three young ones in another larger cage.
Jack Sparrow has figured out how to undo the cover over that nest hole, and escape on a number of times.  He likes to get out and look at us and screech.  I was in feeding them today and looked up and there is sat on top of the cage looking down at me.

As you can see he can be indifferent to me and really doesn't want to be put back in the cage right now.  I have to take a dish towel and capture him from behind. He will walk up to me and turn around so I can pick him up, but traditionally he has to try to bite the heck out of my hand if I don't put the towel in just the right location.  The first time he bit me, he clamped down on that soft part of  the skin on my hand between thumb and first finger.  They use their beak as a tool to crawl around so when the clamp down on you, it really, really hurts bad.
I have two males and a female in the other cage, and each of them like to play with the doors of the cages, lifting them and letting them fall to make a clanging sound.  Sometimes when they would do that the door would stick open and out one of them would come.  Each of them has escaped at least once until I started paper clipping the doors so they won't open.


7 comments:

Valerie said...

I loved this post and the pictures. I had a cockatiel once, name of Snowy on account of him being a white bird. They can be vicious when they want although I never had any bother with mine. Had a parrot too, which I adored.

Anonymous said...

Jack is a cute bird -love his colors. I never knew birds could be such escape artists. They sounds like a lot of fun. Oh what about yellow kitty?
vickie

Sunny said...

Maybe you change his name to Houdini! We had a parakeet, many years ago, that learned to open the door on his cage and escape. Clever little creatures.
I love your pictures of Jack, he's very pretty.
Enjoy your day.
Sunny :)

Les Barr said...

For all the trouble he gives you, yha have to admit that they are very pretty birds. I used to have one, but that was a long time ago. Now, our Son has one, but not as pretty as yours. They sure can "whistle" and quite loud. They are not dumb birds, either.

Les

The Pink Geranium or Jan's Place said...

What as fun post, I think it would be so fun to have a Cockaiel.. but alas, I think my menagerie is already more then I should have..for us to escape to go somewhere, means putting a load on our kids, who live up the street to come and feed, let animals in and out.. and come back later and do it all over again!

You'll have to show us pictures of the feathered kids.

The Retired One said...

Smart birds...he is gorgeous!

Far Side of Fifty said...

Far Guy had a cockatiel one time..she hated me..she was a one person bird. I enjoyed your photos as I know how stubborn they can be..but smart:)

Peony and Tulips....

  The flowers are getting a gentle rain this morning.  It  makes the soil and sub soil happier as our drought is less these days.