Papaya on the left, feeding Gaby on the right. Papaya with his dark eyes & greyish white-edged chest feathers pictured at 9 months of age illustrates typical baby caique features. Gaby is a mature caique with eyes having a rust colored iris, chest feathers a clean white appearance & considerably more bulk/substance bodywise.

Busily preening caiques! Again, little Papaya on the left, and Gaby on the right.

Almost identical twins!

Can you believe it!....an upside down, rope clinging, playful wrestling match between two caiques.

August 1999:
Last week I helped out Papaya's breeder with toenail clipping & weighing so I got a close look at Chiquita, Papaya's mother....she is a BHC. I noticed that just on top of her little green patch between eyes & beak, there is a touch of yellow feathering on both sides of her head. Papaya shows no signs of this, but hope he does develop that little yellow patch....very distinctive. Anyway, I was curious to see if any other adult BHC on the list have that small yellow patch. Gaby does not have it.

One of Sally Blanchard's BHC Spike's tricks is to open both wings wide in a wave in response to audience clapping. I know that Sally mentioned once that she takes advantage of natural caique behavior in her trick training. Last evening, my daughter called me over to look at Papaya....she had a little container of pellets & was rattling it just out of his sight....he opened up one wing & then the other & held his wings wide open. She got him to do it a couple of times. I tried to follow her cues, but couldn't get him to do it for me. I didn't bother to run for the camera as Papaya thinks the camera is more interesting than anything he is doing so he's hard to get a picture of unless you wanted a close up of a caique heading your way. I hope we can get Papaya to do this again....it's really cute especially with his happy eyes. He's in the other room singing away right now.

Here's a couple of pictures of the boys from early 2000:

Jan - 2001 - Moments earlier they were having one of their wrestling matches. Next moment, Papaya climbs on top of the little perch & Gaby climbs up after him & they stand together sweetly. The little rascals are so uncooperative....they are so cute....and just as I'm about to take the picture....not!

Mar '01 - I do love the surfing that the caiques do & I'd better make sure that I have a really old shirt on if I give baths. Gaby just leaves puckers, but Papaya tends to make holes & if there are holes, they get much bigger while he's getting dry.

Gaby is a much more graceful & accomplished surfer than Papaya has ever been. I don't know why Papaya doesn't quite do it right, but he doesn't. Gaby makes up for that with his elegant body brush strokes over & over...down my back....oh, it's the best back rub....I just wish I could occasionally direct his aim...oh there...yes, that feels so good....sort of direction...(LOL)

I took some pictures of Gaby too....but they are fairly dark so will have to try again. Gaby's main interest in taking a bath is to get wet quick & then get over to the kitchen curtains so he can rub himself on them. He especially likes to go down inside the tieback strap....once he gets himself fairly dry then he wants to come and surf on my shirt. Sometimes, he even asks for another spraying just so he can go back & rub himself on the curtain again.

Three or four sprays....he flaps his wings hard & then leans towards the curtain. These are just kitchen window short curtains.

Oh yes....just gotta tell this one....I put a couple of treats on their treat bowl and Papaya leaped over to the cage from the playstand, climbing up the bars to get to the top & those treats. Gaby was right behind him & grabbed Papaya's tail feathers in his beak & yanked him back hard....Papaya let out a very loud squawk! I guess Gaby wasn't going to let Papaya beat him to the treats. Of course, I kept my laugh to myself & scolded Gaby for beind so rough. It wasn't a nice thing to do but funny to see & that tail was a very handy brake. Papaya has a habit of "me first" and then running to the little wood stand & having his own private spot to eat.

Marilyn Whalen & Gaby & Papaya

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