a gang of lovebirds gettin' ready to rumble. left to right: Mistletoe, Squirky, Winston, and Baby
Mistletoe is quiet and shy around people, but very dominant toward other birds. She loves being talked to, and will listen intently as you talk to her, but won't demand attention loudly like other lovebirds will. She will come up to meet you if you put your face to her cage, but she will do it slowly and cautiously. And she will occasionally land on someone's shoulder when out of her cage, but almost never unless another bird has landed first. One of her quirks is that she has trouble with doors. She will often land on the doorframe from the livingroom to the kitchen several times before flying low enough to actually enter the other room. She likes tucking seed hulls in her tail feathers, and often discards the seed itself. She is very hard to get back into her cage after she's been out, sometimes infuriatingly so. She is my dad's favorite bird. We named her Mistletoe because of her coloring and because we got her around Christmas time.
Squirky died in 1994. We had gotten her in 1989 from someone who didn't want to take care of her any more. She was our first lovebird, and, sad to say, I really don't remember much of her personality at this point. She wasn't as outgoing as Baby, and she had a certain way of holding out her wings which was unique. I used to sing a song to her, "Squirky the kmart bird" (to the tune of casper the friendly ghost). She died very suddenly which was traumatic.
Winston is the clutz of the group, and frequently trips over dust molecules or misses his goal when he jumps from one object to another. He is missing two toes -- one of which was gone before we got him, and one of which mysteriously disappeared soon after we bought him (we still don't know if he got his foot caught somewhere or if one of the other birds bit his toe off). He is also smaller than our other lovebirds, and has a flat head (which might account for the fact that he's not too bright). He's my mom's favorite bird, and she often defends him when I and my father make fun of him. He is an immaculate groomer. He is a follower, and when the birds are out, sometimes Mistletoe and Baby will get into fights over who gets to pal around with him. When he doesn't want to go back into his cage, he has a special place in the living room where he hides, behind the spool of the curtain rod. He will peer out occasionally just to see if we are on to him yet. Often he will go back by himself, but sometimes we have to catch him with a towel. He is a sweet bird, and not very aggressive, except that he rushes to attack the spoon whenever we feed him. His nickname is Wimpston.
Baby is my favorite. I bought him with my own money when I was in tenth grade. I couldn't resist - he was doing somersaults in his cage to get attention. When he was little, he liked to nest in my hair. I used to be able to hold him in my hand. After several months of age, though, he started biting. He is LOUD, a clown, very intelligent, and stubborn. He is often very easy to get back into his cage, but if he feels he hasn't been out long enough, he will go hide in between the cages. When people are nearby but ignoring him, he will start doing a series of regular loud shrieks while clinging to the corner top of the cage and sliding his beak up and down the bars. He is the bird who is allowed to come out most often. Many evenings after dinner I will escort him into the kitchen on my arm, where he tears paper and kibbutzes while the humans play a game. When he is out with the other birds, he is always the first to be put back in his cage. Usually he goes back in and placidly eats a snack while watching us corral the other birds.
our lovebirds are all female. It's impossible to tell the sex of a lovebird from the way it looks, but all of our lovebirds have laid (infertile) eggs. They also sometimes "display" (invite sex by squatting down, putting their wings out and their tail up), even though there are no male lovebirds around.
There is nothing funnier than a lovebird bathing. They stretch out their wings and bow down into the water (which can be provided in a shallow dish, or sometimes they will use their water cups), wiggling all around to get themselves wet. Wet lovebirds look incredibly funny. I must procure a picture.
lovebirds love to tear leaf-like things (paper, bark, lettuce leaves) and tuck the pieces into their tail feathers (presumably for an imaginary nest). They can be very destructive -- for example, our lampshades all bear the scars of lovebird bites.
to see more lovebirds and other parrots, go to my page of lovebird and parrot webrings
Trinket is colored like buttered popcorn. She is a very sweet bird who enjoys nibbling fingers and noses lightly, and taking baths in wet lettuce leaves. She loves Baby and thinks the lovebirds are her friends, even though with no bars between them, they would probably kill her (we put the parakeets in another room when we let the lovebirds out to play).
Trisket is a very, very sensitive bird, who from the time we first got her was scared of everything and highly excitable. We could never win her over. Trisket is alternately afraid and hyper aggressive, pecking the hand that feeds. She has the most exquisite coloring, with a white body, white wings with dark grey delicate markings that look hand-painted, a blue patch on her back/at the base of her impossibly long tail, and some dandelion yellow on her face. She has a beautiful rich soprano voice, and when she is in a good mood, she sings and chirps to herself in a very entertaining and melodic way. When she is threatened, however, she will cuss you out loudly with squawks.
Harriet was purchased by a man for his wife who had recently lost a dog. The woman wanted nothing to do with Harriet, and she was kept in a pen in the back yard, receiving good physical care but no love. Back then, her name was "sundance."
(more pictures and text later...)
