Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Manners

Flappy seems to have learned to eat like a gentleman.

He* still isn't interested in any food other than birdseed, but has made the connection that if he takes a chunk of my hand in his mouth, I'm going to go away and take the seed with me. So now he is being very careful to take one seed gently at a time, and if the pointy bit of his beak accidentally catches my hand, he freezes and then quickly looks up, aghast, to see if I have taken offense.

This just in: Cockatoo tongues are all tickly.

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* I have no idea what sex Flappy is, but I'm going to make him masculine here, just to save me having to do weird shit with my pronouns. (Masculine rather than feminine because he's slightly bigger than his mate, which might—who knows?—be significant in birdie sex determination.)

7 Comments:

Dr. Brazen Hussy said...

How cute! And yes, bigger can mean male in many species.

Pilgrim/Heretic said...

Tickly cockatoo tongues! That cracks me up.

Bardiac said...

I think of parrot tongues as being like slightly damp erasers. Tickly :)

They learn FAST, don't they?

Unknown said...

This reminds me of a friend of mine who calls all dogs "scrappy" or "rags." I pretty much call everything "stinky."

I would like to be licked by a cockatoo - a wild one though, not a caged one. Can I come visit?

Jenny said...

So after you finish teaching him table manners, will you allow him to progress to polite conversation?

StyleyGeek said...

Bardiac: I am surprised by how dry this one's tongue is. Maybe it's related to the powderiness of their feathers that you observed. I guess it would make sense if everything about them was dry, since they don't exactly have much access to water in the wild.

Shrinky: Stinky is an awesome name. I think I might call Flappy's mate Stinky. Then all parrots can come in pairs: Flappy and Stinky.

Miss M: He already does conversation. We converse about the sad problem that the more seed you eat, the less of it there is left ("Squawk? Squawk!!!") Polite is maybe another matter.

StyleyGeek said...

Oh, and Shrinky, you should totally come visit. Or, we can set up our retirement home over here with plenty of wild cockatoos to be licked by.