René was out in a jungly part of the catio checking things out from his high perch.
Category: Eclectus Parrot
A Kitty & A Bird
Rosencrantz and René were both wanting my attention, and neither one cared much for the critter competition they had going on.
Classic Kitties & René
Romeo, Tesla and Guildenstern were classic today. We went over the Lane’s house and played with Tesla and he posed for me. Then we dropped by Laurie’s parent’s house and Romeo was disgusted that we walked in smelling of Tesla. Earlier in the day we put carrot cake outside on the deck to cool, and when Laurie whispered “…don’t tell Guildenstern!” he perked right up and looked around to see what we were whispering his name for.
I took René in for his quarterly beak trim. Classical KHFM was playing an opera during our drive to the vet, and when René heard the woman’s voice he started to hoot and whistle like he does when he’s flirting with women. I found it interesting that he reacted the same way to a beautiful voice as he does to a beautiful woman.
Magic Bird
While photographing René on his perch with the sun behind him, he decided to try some magic tricks on me. He folded out his wing like a cape, and then made his head disappear when he pulled his wing back.
Breakfast with Beaker
Laurie has to share her cereal and coffee with Beaker most mornings. Guildenstern thinks we have things all wrong — “one should have birds for breakfast, not have breakfast with birds” he meows — but he knows Beaker and René are formidable adversaries and stays clear of both of them. René is slowly getting better at flying and I’m slowly getting better at sneaking in better lighting to catch him in flight.
All Your Chair Are Belong To Us
Every time Laurie gets up from of her chair at the end of the table, Guildenstern gets in it. Once she moves Guildenstern off her chair and sits back down, René bombs his way over to her, flying from chair to chair (three chairs in all) to get across the counter and finally onto the table and over to Laurie. I didn’t have the best lighting for capturing René in flight in these shots, so I set up a flash and tried to get him to do is chair to chair flight again, but he would have nothing to do with flying to the chair with that new fangled light source off to the side of it.
I adapted today’s title from the video “All Your Base Are Belong To Us”, a video that goes back to 2001. The title of the video was taken from a line in the 1991 introduction to an adaption of the arcade game “Zero Wing” that had really bad Japanese-to-English translation. Around our house, whenever you get up from a chair, a cat or a bird is likely to occupy it because to them “all your chair are belong to us!”
Permanent Vacation
Café Giuseppe has had a sign on the door for the past five weeks telling its customers that they are on vacation for a week. Turns our their week off has turned into a permanent vacation, and Café Giuseppe will not reopen according to its owners. I don’t know if it was malicious vandals or an irate customer who broke the window yesterday.
iPhone Animals
Often, when the kitties and birds are being cute, I pull out a camera and they cease being cute. But when I pulled out the iPhone (not the usual camera) Rosencrantz and René just stuck their faces in it.
Bird Help
René will unexpectedly get spooked by everyday things that I wouldn’t expect would freak him out, so when I started scanning sections of the Icelandic Sagas for the Old Norse class Laurie is taking, I expected René would freak out and fly over to the couch. To my surprise, he was fascinated by the scanner. He would look at me expectantly for my approval to check it out, then he looked to see where the noise was coming from, and finally he would stick his head under the lid while I was holding the page flat during the scans to get a closer look. He was very entertained by the whole process of scanning sections of Viking age sagas, and made a game out of it.
Family Breakfast on the Deck
With fall comes green chiles and there’s nothing like a leisurely breakfast with Guildenstern and René (Laurie doing the photo and the other cats on the table or chairs). We had huevos rancheros made with freshly peeled green chiles from Wagner’s Farm.
Off Center & Not Even 