Mona Delgado

(This form of play may not be appropriate for all parrots.   Some parrots can become aggressive if they are baited, just like a dog.)

There are excellent articles available that address proper parrot diet.   Some are written by experts (such as Alicia McWatters Ph.D.C.N.C.) who study nutrition.   I (the average parrot owner) always feel bombarded by information and often after a quick perusal I will make some small change to my bird’s daily dinner routine.   Right now, I could write about Phinney’s feed….making a long list of colorful fruits and vegetables, but I can’t tell you if her vitamins and minerals are balanced and I can’t tell you if everything she consumes is good for her.  I have to confess, she is pretty good at manipulating my husband and myself and she usually gets her visual cravings (sometimes that’s one almond too many or pasta with a dab of cream sauce or maybe even a small sip of tea).

Still, our overall goal for her is good health and I do think we have achieved that.   Her feathers have a beautiful, almost colorful sheen (for an African grey) and she has a great sense of energy that manifests itself in a wonderful sense of humor.

Diet is tremendously important to a bird’s health but there is something else that is basically important to their health and happiness and is much simpler to provide.   It is as necessary as clean water and fresh air.  You don’t need to educate yourself on the specializations of your particular species.  You don’t need to study your parrot in the wild to make sure you have the correct balance and dose.   All you need is a propensity for play and a little common sense.    I am talking about good, vigorous exercise.

Some fortunate people have the resources to build an outside aviary.   This is probably ideal, however;  it requires some dedication, planning, vigilance from predators and money.   If you don’t have that kind of commitment or space, but you still own a parrot or two… I think one of the best methods to provide vigorous exercise is good, hard, creative play time.  If your parrot has the temperament for it, I recommend the same kind of interaction and play time that you would give to a puppy or kitten that becomes part of your household.

Okay, I confess that I am not a parrot behavioralist and my household houses only one large parrot and two small cockatiels, and maybe my husband and I just got lucky.   Still and all, common sense tells me that an animal that expends so much energy in the wild, flying great distances, maintaining constant vigilance from predators and searching for food on a daily basis…..if kept healthy, would need to expend that energy in captivity.  Even if you are the most conscientious parrot parent in the world, you just can’t provide such stimulation in a cage.   The bird has to come out of the cage and the bird has to play.

Phinney, our timneh,  discovered her favorite game one afternoon while I was settled on the couch reading a bird magazine.    She was quite young at the time, under a year old.   I found a large picture of an African grey and because I was curious about her ability to discern pictures, I showed it to her.    I said “Look Phinney, it’s an African Grey!”    Phinney looked.   Her eyes pinned and then to my surprise, she took a flying leap at the picture and began to tear the pages with her sharp little beak.    I reacted.   I laughed at her.   I called to my husband and I decried her cleverness, and she lifted her head from the pages and gazed into the distance with the typical grey gaze…one second, two seconds, three seconds, four seconds, staring straight ahead like a statue…while I explained to my disbelieving husband that “yes, she had been able to tell it was a parrot and yes, she did attack it.”

Now I had a problem. If I could not get her to replicate this feat of avian recognition, I just looked like an imaginative eccentric.

I knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that she could recognize pictorial parrots, but the proof was always in private.  I got another painful lesson in this talent, when I wore my favorite T-shirt with pictures of cockatiels on it one afternoon.   That T-shirt now sports little puncture marks across the front of it.    I quit wearing it around Phinney.   I also maintained my resolve to keep cockatiels and grey a safe distance from each other at all times.

Yet, I was determined to prove that she could pick out parrots in a photographic line up so I encouraged her crazy antics.    This encouragement was quite successful, except that she became more generalized in her target.   Eventually, her attacks evolved into a wild and crazy launch on all paper products in general.    The kitchen table has become her favorite field.

Here is the game.     I or my husband, get a birthday card from some relative…or we find a particularly sturdy piece of junk mail, or we rip out those annoying subscription cards that are found in most magazines, or I build a paper airplane….and we quickly and carefully place it on the center of  the table.    We look at Phinney, who is usually preening her feathers in a very nonchalant, carefree manner on top of the cage or on the side of the table.    We say, “Go git it Phinney!!! Go Git it!!”

Phinney will look up from her preening and slowly walk up to the paper in a misleading disarming manner.   She places each one of her big flat feet, one in front of the other, her neck slightly arched and her eyes wide open.   This is the grey stalk.   It looks like a parrot who is slightly interested in what is in front of it or a parrot that might reach over and take a slight taste of the object… but overall, it looks like a fairly harmless, slightly playful, easy going stroll.

Then, when you least expect it, she launches herself into mid air.  Wings are flapping and feet are in front of her.   She grabs the object in her talons and lands on her butt.   She grasps the paper in her beak, beats her wings madly back and forth, sometimes squealing a painfully loud excited screeeech, and flaps and flaps so that she is sliding across the table, on her butt, moving in circles.   

This is a great hit at parties.   Guests that thought she was just a shy, sweet parrot that routinely begged for head skritches, quickly remove all appendages from the table and gasp in surprise and fright.    I unnecessarily remind them to keep their fingers away from her beak.  She forgets not to bite when she is playing.

After she eventually pushes the paper on the floor (and she always pushes the paper on the floor) I pick it up and drop it in the middle of the table again and she continues her antics.    Her approach often changes.   Sometimes she tries to fly above the paper and grab it, sometimes she comes from underneath and just chews it, and sometimes she just picks it up and drops it off the table.    This game can go on for at least an hour.

Over the years, we have discovered variations that include brown paper grocery bags that have to be destroyed, bird balls and bird toys that are flung into the middle and tossed on the floor and paper tubes that are thunked at her as she runs around in a madcap manner while her big feet prance with excitement.

The lessons I have learned from all of this are two-fold.

First  lesson.  A bird needs vigorous exercise.    Some may think that playing with a bird in such a manner might make them mean, like teasing a dog.   The truth is, we aren’t teasing Phinney.   We are playing with her and she recognizes it as play.   She knows that this is a game where she gets to flap her wings, roll over on her back (if she so chooses), run around and basically exhaust us.   For our part, we just laugh.  We laugh and talk to her in high pitched phrases that she knows.  We call to each other when she embellishes another really funny manueuver, and we relax and act like kids.    But mostly, most importantly, we pick up the paper after she throws it on the floor.

Second lesson.  The more money you spend on entertainment, the less the bird will appreciate it.  After going to the bird store and spending $50 on various bird toys that are on sale, her favorite toy is always the brown paper bag that they came in.    This year, for her fourth hatch day celebration, I resurrected an old bird toy that had all of the Popsicle sticks chewed off…had my husband drill holes in new Popsicle sticks and recreate the toy, then I wrapped it in newspaper and set it on the table and let her go to town.

It isn’t that we’re particularly cheap when it comes to the birds.   It’s just that the truth is, the most expensive toy just isn’t the favorite toy.   The toy that requires our time and interaction, our exclamations of delight, our laughter….now that’s the favorite toy.