Mice with Wings

I have never had birds, never knew anyone with birds. I had a relative with a heavy Yorkshire accent that had a bird -my mom and dad visited her and my father could not figure out why this women kept talking about her "board".

Anyhow, my relative has two birds. I've never spent much time with them until recently. Yuck. I'm not sure what the attraction is. Apart from having to clean out their tray they molt feathers everywhere. I don't know if these ones are more nervous then most but when I made a loud sound moving something there was a flurry of activity and a pouf of feathers flying out the cage everywhere. We just vacuumed all these feathers yesterday!

One of them doesn't seem to do much - I think he's oxygen starved from the smoke in the apartment (I know I am) but the other one obviously has the memory of 2 seconds. He grabs his ladder and looks in the mirror and pecks at it then goes back to his perch. Then he grabs his ladder and looks in the mirror and pecks at it then goes back to his perch. Sometimes he pecks at this little bird head that springs around. Very OCD.

I also now know why people drape things over their cage to let them think its time to sleep. Once sundown hit they are chirping and freaking out. And they don't respond to "shut up". Hey, I didn't stand at the cage screaming shut up - only from the couch and in a speaking voice.

Anyhow, after this introduction to birds I think I'm quite content to remain with cats.