Tales of a Parrot

Geordie's cage was one of those where the top opened up and a perch could be placed up there for her to sit on during the day. It's well do***ented that the boss parrot in a flock perches higher in the tree than underlings. The logic behind that being that the higher up you are, the fewer birds are perched above you that can crap on you during the night. The bad part in that is that if you allow a parrot to sit on a perch that is normally higher than you, then the parrot starts to think that it is the boss and you have to nip that in the bud.
Believe it or not, siting a cage is very important. Ideally, it should be in the corner of the room. Parrots are very nervous animals and they are always worried about being attacked by a predator. Having the cage in a corner means that no predator can sneak up on the bird from behind. This gives the parrot a feeling of security which makes a hell of a difference to their temperament.
Anyway, enough of the boring stuff, lol. At the time, i had a big shed in the back garden. Our youngest boy and I took 3 weeks to build it and, if I say so myself, it was a cracker. Solid as you like with wire mesh to protect it from any break-ins at the rear. It was my refuge, if you like and it had all the things a man needs, Computer, TV, video, DVD player, fridge, and even a Belling mini cooker and microwave. etc plus big thick ropes going from beam to beam for Geordie to play on. We would go out there so that I could play ***** and get out of Aggie's hair for a few hours and that's where Geordie met the magpies.
In summer, I would leave the door open and Geordie would spend time sat on the top of the door (it opened outwards) One day she was up there and there was a bit of a racket going on and I sneaked a look and saw that she was shouting the odds at a magpie that also wanted to sit on top of the door. Eventually they were both sat there, one at one end and one at the other. This sort of thing happened a few times, even to the extent that Geordie would go up to the roof of the shed and run about chasing them away. It was really funny for me, sat inside, to hear racing footsteps going across the roof over my head.
This was also where Geordie got to watch a lot of telly. The experts reckon that parrots will always act like 2 or 3 year old kids. They even like the same sort of things. Because of that, they like cartoons rather than period drama on TV so I got some videos for Geordie to watch while I was computing. The bad news was that one of the tapes was The Flintstones and Geordie picked up on something that Fred said regularly. So some nights, we would all be in the living room watching telly and all of a sudden Geordie would let fly with a screeeech of, WilmaaaaaAAAAAAAAA!!!!
That woke us up a bit

[shazzababie]

omg i would have loved to see her with the Magpies, bloody maggies are a pest round here ... !! I wish we culd post pics in here so i can see her

We didn't have a holiday, as such, for about 4 years. The idea of leaving her at a Pet Hotel didn't appeal to us and we didn't know anybody that we would trust to look after her properly. I hate to think what would happen if left in her cage for 2 weeks but on the other hand, if a stranger let her out and she managed to get outside, what would she do?
So for 4 years the only break we got was to visit our oldest boy who lives down in Ringwood. It's a longish drive and can take anything from 3 and a 1/2 hours to 6 hours or more, depending on the traffic. Aggie would get stretched out on the back seat and try to get her head down while Geordie's big cage went in the boot area (we had a Citroen Xsara Picasso at the time) along with our kit. Geordie's travel cage sat on the front passenger seat with plenty of food and water in it but as usual, she was running free. She spent a lot of time sat on top of the dashboard facing forward with her wings outstretched. It was almost as though she was imagining herself flying the route. The rest of the time she would sit on my shoulder, especially if there was a roadblock and other cars were alongside us as we crawled forwards. I don't speak Parrot but she used to give other drivers a right telling off and God help us if she saw a dog.
Once we got down there it was like a home from home. They have a big garden with a chalet type shed to Geordie was quite happy out there. They also had 2 dogs. One is a mini Yorkie who is as mad as a box of frogs and the other is some kind of cross breed with a lot of Yorkie in there and he is also mental. Geordie used to make their lives hell. She would steal their food when they weren't looking and swoop down on them to bite their tails. Also, there are places in Ringwood that Geordie was a regular as well.
But then we decided after 3 months of 18 hours a day work for 7 days a week, luckily working from home, we decided that we needed a proper holiday. I got in contact with a parrot forum and put the idea forward that we needed a parrot sitter for 2 weeks. We went to see a few folk who put themselves up for it but you know how it is, she was our baby and even the slightest off-putting thing meant we had to keep looking. Then we went to see a couple who wanted to look after a Grey because they had some Conures but were thinking of getting a Grey to add to their flock. We got to their house and almost had a fit. The whole inside of the house except for the kitchen was made out like a jungle. There was all the usual stuff as well like comfy chairs, coffee tables and TV, hi-fi etc but there were real trees, vines and bushes. An area towards the back, away from all the electric stuff, even had an indoor sprinkler system to simulate the rain forest. There were 5 birds in there, all doing their own thing but when the guy sat down on the sofa, they all came down and sat on him. It was obvious even then that if this guy would take Geordie and look after her for us, she would be well treated. He was delighted with Geordie so we went back every night for a week to get Geordie acclimatised and then we buggered off to Las Vegas for 2 weeks. Cheap as chips at £149 each. You couldn't even get ONE week in Blackpool for that.

BTW, in an earlier post I wrote " We would go out there so that I could play ***** and get out of Aggie's hair for a few hours and that's where Geordie met the magpies."

The missing word isn't rude. It is a 5 letter card game beginning with a P with a K in the middle and ending in an R.