"Step Up"

Peaches and (Soy) Ice Cream

If I don’t get Cisco first thing after walking through the door, he screams. It’s loud, ear-shattering, almost heart-stopping. Labeling it annoying rings of diplomacy. It’s flat out horrible, veering in the “Oh my gosh I’m gonna KILL that bird” direction.

Responses like, “Be quiet, I’ll be in there in a minute.” Or, “Shut-up” don’t work. Even worse, responding in anyway, nice quiet tones...loud tones, serves to encourage his I’m sure the neighbors can hear him greeting.

Usually, I wait for a moment of silence. A one-second reprieve will do…then I bounce into the den and chirp, “Hey everybody!” If Cisco persists on screaming, I make my rounds to all the other birds, ignoring him altogether –and this means eye contact. No looking. When he gives me a small window of silence, i dart right over to his cage cooing my hellos.

After I open the latch to his door, he plays this game. He wants to come right out, but he won’t. Instead he climbs down to the bottom of the door, lashing his huge black beak in my direction when I offer my hand for him to step up on. Big, bad bird with a beak.

“Step up!” I say, gathering the most authoritative tone I can muster. I’m tired from a long day at work. I'm never in the mood to play the game. Why birds do this--and all birds do--at least our birds do, is beyond me.

Last night I put Cisco on the perch in the kitchen while I rummaged around in search of food. He loves eating/tasting my dinner. Chicken(Yeah, I know), broccoli, spinach, peach, and then dessert –double chocolate soy ice cream. (His favorite).

When I first offered him the spoon, he side-stepped away and gave me his “eye”. The Um, I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’m not falling for this eye. “Hmph,” I said and began sampling my spoonfull of chocolate soy, making a dramatic display of my enjoyment.

That did it, he inched back over, lowered his head and gave me a different “eye”. The one that says, “Hey, whatcha got there? Can I have some? eye. This time, when I offered the spoon, he wiggled his little black tongue(Yes, blue and gold macaws have black tongues), and licked a tiny taste off the spoon. FYI: We don’t share spoons. I draw the line at eating after my parrots.

Now, he loves the stuff. He’ll lick the spoon clean when offered. Last night, I pulled out Cherry Vanilla from the fridge but he wasn’t having it. Nope, double chocolate is all this blue and gold macaw is licking.






"You're going to get knocked down. It's whether you stay down or whether you get back up and fight that counts."
--Chris Lofton