My family is a bird family. We have a dusky conure, a sun conure, a Hahn’s macaw, and two African geese. All pictures by me or my dad, fished out of my instagram or facebook.
Indoor Birds:
This is Connie (AKA Mr. Pickle). He’s a dusky headed conure, 16 years old. I’ve had him since the second grade. He loves my mom, being in any person’s face, food he’s not allowed to eat because of his liver condition, and knocking things over. He (and all of the others) lives with my parents. Here’s some more pictures of the Con Man.
Like I said. He loves to be in people’s faces.
He loves the dishwasher and the cutlery drawer. He also love’s my dad’s sock drawer and playing in my dad’s underwear when it’s being folded.
The little orange nugget on the right is Bunny, a ~7 year old sun conure. My dad found her in Falls Church, VA in the courtyard of an office building. We looked for her owner half-heartedly, but never heard from anyone so she’s our little baby now. We honestly collectively forgot what summer we found her. I think 2011, but who knows for sure.
She may have bright feathers, but she’s not the brighest. She was fully flighted when we found her (no one had trimmed her flight feathers) so she tried to fly through some windows. We suspect it damaged her brain because she’s a little weak on one side and isn’t very good at problem solving. Nevertheless, she’s a happy little lady and LOVES Connie. Like, if she can’t see Connie, she’s screeching. Fun fact: Sun conures are the loudest conure species. They’re very very very loud.
Sorry for the potato quality photos of Bunny. She hates phones, so it’s hard to snap a picture of her. Here’s one more:
Here she is enjoying some millet spray. I’ll have to make it a point to take some better portraits of my feathered children.
A classic. Again. Birds are hard to take pictures of. I’d get my fancy camera out, but they’re scared of those, and they aren’t too keen on phones, either.
You may recognize this picture from my little icon. This is Effie, my 15 year old Hahn’s macaw (AKA red shouldered macaw). They’re an incredibly small species of macaw.
She may look cute, but she has a bit of a temper and WILL bite you. I have a wound on the back of my neck from wrestling her into her cage yesterday. However, if you’re one of the 3 people she likes (and she’s not mad at you for leaving), she’s very sweet and cuddly.
One thing I will say about this tiny gator is she sure knows how to work a camera.
Now you’re probably wondering, “do they talk?” In order: No, No, and Yes. Effie says “hello” (especially when the phone rings), “Hi Bubbie”, “Hi Papa”, “Hiiiii!”, “Hi Effie”, “Silly”, and she laughs and can make a zipper noise. She also likes to bob her head up and down and sing the Banana Splits theme song (she has no rhythm whatsoever but she tries her best).
Connie and Effie are friends and preen each other regularly. Effie and Bunny are decidedly NOT friends.
Outdoor Birds:
Now the weird animals my dad decided we needed. My parents’ house has an 8 acre pond. One day, a domesticated goose wandered into our little biosphere, and my dad noticed. He decided “that little thing is going to be my friend”. So he got some waterfowl food and got the little guy to come up and eat. This became a daily thing. My mom named him Dom (short for Domesticated Goose). He’s the alert one on the right.
My dad decided this goose looked lonely and needed a friend. So he drove from northern Virginia to North Carolina (5-7 hour drive) to a goose breeder and bought Dom a friend for $20. She’s the one eating on the left in the picture above. Her name is Lucy Goosey (that was all me).
The first picture of them together. Dom took a few days before he would let Lucy near him. Now they’re best friends. I believe in this one, Dom’s on the left and Lucy’s on the right.
Fun fact: Dom makes these weird little mournful pipe noises, and Lucy quacks like a duck.
Deceased (RIP):
Before any of these birds, there was Birdie.
Birdie was a pied cockatiel. He was 26 years old (he died when I was 18), an unheard of age for his species, whose average life span is 15-20 years old. He was a grumpy old geezer for most of his life, but he made up for it by lighting up our house with his whistling rendition of the Andy Grifith theme song (he forgot it after a while and started making it up. It was surprisingly jazzy and good). He hissed at you if you got too close to his cage at night time.
Here’s Connie and Birdie, tolerating each other due to the proximity of food.
Birdie loved my mom’s purses.
Before we had the geese, we actually had pet swans! I wouldn’t recommend it, they’re mean to all the other wildlife. These guys were Royal English mute swans.
Lexi on the nest, Andrew standing guard. I think they were about 10 when they died.
Andy making sure we don’t try any funny business in the canoe near his wife’s nest.
Lexi’s in the back, Andy’s hogging all the food as usual.
These guys were about as smart as an average-intelligence dog. They came when my dad called them and knew their names.
Their deaths were actually a really sad story: Lexi got attacked by a coyote while sitting on her nest. Andy couldn’t save her and it broke his heart, so he crawled up to our house, somehow hopped the fence around our pool, and died right there.
Wow, that got dark. How about some silly photos?
Here’s Andy playfully biting my foot.
Here’s Effie taking a bath in her water dish.
Here’s Birdie, hiding.
Connie likes to steal cookies from the packaging.
And here’s Birdie, participating in his favorite car activity we called “windsurfing”, featuring my dad. Birdie liked to stand in the direct line of the vent then spin around, flap his wings, and fluff up.
I hope you enjoyed this collection of grainy images. Most of them were taken by phones so there’s not much I can do about that.
Take care of yourself!
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