Diary of the Escape Artist as a Young Bird
This is not a picture of Bibo. It is his body double.
Bibo has definately been moulting for the past month, although I am not sure if it is a six month moult or if it is an end-of-summer moult or if these things even exist. But he is moulting. What this means is that he looks exactly the same as ever: he's not sitting in his cage with no feathers. But he's losing ten times as many as before. He even lost a tail feather this week. And he is definately becoming much more yellow than before.
Last month Bibo began to say "Step Up." Those are the only words Opal ever learned, and she was about a year old when she began to say them. I am trying to teach him some new words, like "Hi Baby." He naturally makes a noise pattern which sounds very similar to this, and I am trying to reinforce it as the sound that will get me to come to his cage (as opposed to the screeching sound). He will still occasionally make the gargling "gub gub" noise he made when he was younger.
Bibo seems to be very receptive to training. Of course, we try to make it fun for him! He will display his wings on command (this trick took about two months to teach him and is still being refined) and "play dead" (this trick took about three weeks and he learned it three months ago).
Bibo still likes to chew on our fingers, but he is not as orally fixated as he used to be. He will occasionally reach out and RIP RIP RIP a piece of paper (not good when it's money!), but mostly he hasn't taken to therapeutic chewing. He rips the wooden beads off of his cage toys and does a little shredding of the wood on the edge of his play area, but he has not taken to the persistent chewing yet like I have expected him to.
When I got there, I started to prepare the mix for the lories, and as I was scooping the food out, he started bobbing his head up and down in a way I have been told indicates aggression or an attempt to show he was the bigger bird. He did it today, too, around my husband. (Next he'll be asking us for a car so he can impress the girls.)
I was almost nodding off as I drove out there (don't know why), and I decided I simply had to have a nap before I drove home. But what could I do with Bibo? I could have put him in the car ... it was cool and shady there and I had no worries, but I didn't want to leave him totally unattended. But I had to sleep. So I went and set up a pillow and a blanket on the couch and snuggled under it. Bibo didn't want to hide under the covers at all (I knew he was fairly safe as it wasn't possible for me to roll), so he climed up and sat on my head. Unfortunately he started preening, and all of the little movements drove me to distraction. So then he moved down the blanket to my waist and just settled down, letting me sleep and being ABSOLUTELY QUIET for half an hour. Not a peep, NOTHING! It must have helped that it was late afternoon and overcast, but I was VERY GRATEFUL that Bibo was such a good bird that day ... and surprised that he would settle down like that.
Bibo is becoming more aggressive. I still don't think he has bitten me hard enough to draw blood, but he did for Jason just last week. We had a friend visiting that Bibo had never seen before, and he got very puffy and excited. Jason reached in the cage to take him out and Bibo bit him very hard. It was not a time when Bibo usually ever comes out of the cage (8 PM at night), and Jason said he should have been able to tell Bibo was just too excited to be taken out. Bibo has become very reluctant to come out of his cage unless he wants to. I think he's becoming territorial. He bit my friend Ann hard enough to give her a bruise on her finger that has lasted for two weeks.
We have been trying to teach Bibo new tricks. This is especially true for Jason, who is trying to learn new ways to work with Bibo (since Bibo seems, unsurprisingly, bonded to me). Using a book on parrot tricks (I can't remember the name now), he has taught Bibo to turn around on his finger and is working on "fetch." Bibo seems to like this a lot.
Bibo also likes to sit on my shoulder when I'm gardening, but if he gets bored he will try to rip my shirt apart at the seams -- a real disincentive to carry him around! Also, he likes to chew on necks and sometimes faces. Jason does not like to carry him on the shoulder at all now. Even for such a little bird, that beak could do very bad things to such tender skin.
I would not be writing so soon but something very bad happened two days ago. You know how I said happy screeches mean your conure is happy? Bibo always makes them when I come home. And when I came home two days ago, there was dead silence. The sun was still up (although setting), so I knew he was awake and his cage was uncovered. I was instantly worried.
When I walked in the door, I could see Bibo hanging from the side of his cage by one foot, holding on to a toy with the other foot, and watching me. He was utterly silent as I approached his cage.
When I got to the cage, I saw that the thin cord I had made the toy out of had wrapped itself around his body -- around his neck and wings. I ran into the kitchen to grab something sharp and ran back and cut the toy off of the top of the cage and removed it and the bird from the cage. Bibo attempted to bite me as I was doing this (I don't think he liked the way I was handling him, even though I was being gentle).
I sat him on my lap and worked to unwrap the cord from his neck, It was easy and quick, but Bibo was being much too quiet and -- well, not really moving. As I scratched his head in the way he liked so much, his eyes closed slowly and I thought he would die in my hands. He puffed his feathers up all over his body and looked every bit like the very, very sick bird I have always hoped never to see in my house.
I turned all of the lights on to make it as bright as possible in the house and tried to encourage Bibo to pay attention to me. I offered him water (which he refused) and, after a while, his favorite seed. I called to him ("Hi, Bibo") to try to get him to respond. He didn't move anything except his eyes. I thought, oh no, I don't want to have another bird die on me. Our car was broken down and I had no way to get to an avian vet in time to do any good.
After twenty minutes, Bibo began to act a little more normal, perching and chewing on some apple. But when I walked by his cage with him on my shoulder, he chose to get off and let himself into the cage, where he had some food. He seemed to be worn out, and he still wasn't making a peep. I sat by his cage, feeding his favorite seeds to him and trying to get him to respond to me.
By the end of the evening (an hour or so later), Bibo seemed mostly normal, but not playful. Nothing was broken, no blood was drawn. He was fine the next morning, but I was still upset. I hope there are no long lasting effects.
Two years after I got Bibo I am still wishing for Opal. Bibo has not developed into such a cuddly bird as Opal was. I wonder, is it nature or nuture? I suspect that there is a great difference in bird personalities, and the differences really aren't just species, gender, or "nurturing" based. Bibo likes to run around on my husbands lap and tear papers up, and he enjoys playing hide and seek, but he has never taken to being petted much although he does enjoy head scratches (and Jason can't give them to Bibo, only me).
Sadly, now that I have two dogs, I am so overwhelmed with THEIR needs (they can come over to see me anytime, Bibo has to stay in his cage) that I feel Bibo is neglected and would benefit from being in a one pet family. But I haven't found that family yet, and he does seem happy with us. I'm glad I never broke down and got a cockatoo -- I could never meet their needs with a working schedule and other pets. How do people do it?
April 2003: I came home to find my little bird clinging to the side of the cage and crying piteously, a sound that was so wrong coming from his strong lungs. I took him to the vet immediately, and even though they injected him with fluids he couldn't make it through the night. He died of a kidney infection. I'll never know what brought it on. My only clue the two previous days was that his water, that he always would dirty by dropping his bird cookies into it, was clean - because he hadn't been eating. Unfortunately I didn't put the two together, I just thought, wow, his water is so clean. I'm going to give up on owning birds for a while - it's just too heartbreaking to have them snatched away from you so suddenly. I really feel the hole when I come home and he's not there waiting for me with his jolly, deafening Sun Conure hello.
January 2007: I still haven't bought another bird even though I really want one. I feel like I was a failure for not being able to take care of Bibo. One nice thing, though, is that now I'm living in London I get to see a flock of wild Ring-Necked Parakeets that live near the wetlands center. They look really cute and I wish I could catch one and take him home with me.
If you would like to read about someone else who really loves their conure (a Nanday), please visit Gracie's page. She has a list of favorite sites, too, including a link to the conure ring!
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Conure information
Parrot care: general
Parrot care: food
Parrot care: bird psychology (just like for kids!)
Teach your bird tricks
Make your own bird toys!