Here's a sleepy little caique (Papaya, of course) who thinks he can stay up forever, but finally ran out of energy & fell asleep on Deb's finger.

January 16th, 2000 post to the Caique list:
Papaya was sitting on the table a bit ago & started making that little caique alarm buzz so I went in to see what he was worrying about. I looked out the window & could see a large bird soaring up high. Any larger bird than the songbirds will worry the caiques & green cheek conure & sometimes it is a crow, but this was a real hawk. Papaya's alarm spread to several other birds & Piper, the brown headed parrot on the other side of the table was standing quite still and wide eyed.

Long after the hawk had soared out of view, Papaya crouched trembling so I took advantage of his need for reassurance by cuddling him & telling him it was okay & that he was safe inside the house. Papaya is somewhat skittish about hands on his back.

Sometimes that alarm call coming from one of the birds will result in a stampede for safety. Caiques dive to the floor & under something. Sassy the bronze wing pionus usually lands on the back of a chair somewhere. Blackie the green cheek conure also will be found on the floor. I'm a collection agency going around & finding everybody. Usually I look outside to see what that was all about and see nothing at all out there.

Now, the lovebirds don't panic or flee. If one is sitting right on the windowsill perch and there's a hawk outside, they don't flee. I'm not sure if that's spunk or smarts (I'm not afraid of anything because I'm a lovebird or I know I'm safe inside the house).

Marilyn & Gaby & Papaya

March '01 - Papaya put on another little "how big am I" performance tonight....you can sure tell that he plays his feathers hard.

Papaya seems to be growing up a bit....I've noticed just this past week that he can spend some time sitting on me quietly....not with Gaby present, of course...and just being a nice little bird instead of the rowdy beast that he usually is. Not for very long, of course....this nice little quiet companion. Then it's back to chewing & swinging & singing.

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