Homecoming

Barney was brought to my home today. It was hard for his previous caretaker to part with him, but I can't blame her. Barney is indeed a unique parrot with amazing personality. I have not regretted a single second for adopting this wonderful bird.

I was thinking about leaving Barney to settle down for a few hours, but after one hour or so, I had to go into his room to get something and all he did was follow me around the room with his eyes. I had is complete attention and he tried to peek at what I was doing with his large, beautiful eyes. I just had to let him out and see what he would do.

I let him climb on top of his cage door and I offered him a pumpkin seed, which he took happily. He climbed all over the top of his domed cage, peer this way and that. He easily stepped up on my hand, but I could tell he wanted nothing more than to see what there was to discover on the top of his cage.

In his cage, he hasn't really done much exploring yet. I think he is a little wary of what certain things are, so that will take some time to get used to. I have put some of his seed food in containers around his cage so that he can spend some time foraging, but I don't think he will get to that till later in the week. In his food bowl has a mix of his regular seed mix and some roudybush pellets, which more of our other birds eat.

While uploading the pictures for this blog, Barney seemed to have either recognized himself, or thought there was a bird that looks like him in my computer. He was on top of the door of his cage and I was lying down on the bed next to his cage, uploading these pictures and Barney climbed down to me, stepped up nicely on my hand when I offered it and just looked really closely at my screen, at the pictures of himself. It was really cute. He also shown interest in the movie that I also uploaded to this blog as I played it. I don't know if he was "friendly" interested or in "attack mode", but it kinda looked like Barney would have lunged at the guy on the screen. But we'll see. As soon as he completes a vet visit and gets the "a-ok" he will be hanging out with the other birds.

Barney has a very interesting array of words and sounds, and this is only the first day! So far, I have heard him say "good boy", "hi Barney", "hey Barney", and "hello". He also has a wonderful wolf whistle, as well as chirps, shrills, kisses, barks (yes, he "barked" at a dog who was walking past with his owner), and what I call "laser beams". These are what I call "great extras" because his ability to speak human-speak is not a necessity for me when I was looking for a bird. Companionship was #1, and Barney fits the bill...and then some.

I have not tried to touch him...that may be asking too much on the first day. I am really pleased that he looked comfortable stepping up on my hand and allowing me to transport him to various points in the room. This was more than I expected from a bird in a new atmosphere.

Okay, well, enough of the ramblings. Here are more pictures of this handsome fella...





The first video of Barney - wolf whistling:

Part One:



Part Two: