DIARY OF OLIVER THE LOVELY AUSTRALIAN ECLECTUS PARROT

Hatched: 12th December 2008 (I'm a Sagittarius)

Adopted by Wendy Cooke in Victoria, Australia on 20th March 2009
at age 14 weeks

Friday 20th March 2009: Adopted by Wendy Cooke. Taken in an aeroplane from Hervey Bay, Queensland to Melbourne Airport, Victoria Australia. Wendy and her family came to collect me and drove to their home in Northern Victoria.

My crate was put into a really big Macaw cage and i came out when i heard the Galahs and Kookaburras coming in to nest in the tall lemon scented Gum Trees on the property.

How I got Oliver to let me pat him:

I took two chopstiks or you could use perches and used them as my hands to pat each side of the bird one after the other. If he bit at the chopstik i'd not allow him to get leverage on it at all. What this does is show the bird that biting is not going to do him any good because it's not hurting. After a while (about 5 mins for my bird) I moved my hand closer to him up the chopstik, until I could sneak a finger in there and actually pat him.

Now, he doesn't even try to bite because he realises that it's nice to be touched, I was gentle and patient and I didn't have to wait very long at all before I could pet him. Every now and then he/she will lunge at you to bite, usually they do this as a warning. He/she may want to be left alone and may not like people just yet. But persist because the reward is much greater than your current frustration.

He let me pat his wings and scratch the back of his neck and feed him with my hands. He ate blueberries, a bit of a strawberry, some sweet potato and beans with rice. He  had a drink then I said good night and put the cover over his cage so he could rest on the soft sleeping perch.

Saturday 21st March 2009: I slept in hehe, Wendy lifted the cover off my cage at 9am and said good morning. I let her hand feed me some cantelope, blueberries and an almond - i like the almond best but i'm not allowed to have more than two a day. I ate some broccoli and nibbled on some Gum Tree leaves with the nuts on 'em. Yummy!

Sunday 22nd March 2009: My first shower!! I liked it a little but not a lot. I'll get use to it though. We had a great snuggle with Oliver in the towel which was probably the beginning of our bonding.

Monday 23rd March 2009: What a day! It started with a good morning screech shortly followed by Oliver hurrying to the front of the cage to be let out. I fed him breakfast first so that he begins to realise that there is an order to things and he ate grated apple and carrot and I also gave him some spinach which he just loves. I didn't have much work to do so we spent the best part of the day playing and getting to know eachother better. I learnt that Oliver loves popcorn and that he'd do just about anything for a tasty morsel. We practised the "wave" command with popcorn rewards and he didn't really get it so I let him be. After a bit of a sleep he "chatted" to the local birds out front and he saw the popcorn in the bowl. He wanted some. Within 10 minutes Oliver learnt to "wave" for popcorn and got over his fear of his foot toy the same way. We had a great day and I think if you look at the photo really close, he even looks like he's smiling! What a sweet heart.

Thursday 26th March 2009:How I got Oliver to "Come on command": Oh poor Oliver, I had to work very hard on Tuesday/Wednesday and then I had to go out Wednesday night for a networking event so Oliver was a bit grumpy this morning. He screamed at me to come and let him out so I waited until he'd been quiet for about 5 minutes first - (I don't want him to get the idea that screaming means mummy comes running) and let him out. He was definitely wanting to spend time with me because I put him on his playgym and he flew to my shoulder and propped. I put him on his T-Bar Stand and same thing. So, I thought I'd take advantage of this and put him back on the T-Bar. I put my hand about 15cm away from the top of his forehead so he wouldn't fly. When he was still I moved my hand to just in front of him with my palm facing upwards and said "Come on" and he jumped onto my hand! I gave him heaps and heaps of praise, a quick snuggle and a scratch on the back of the neck and put him back on the T-Bar Stand. We repeated this about 6 times and I decided that he could probably use a break and just spend time with me without having to do anything 'special', so we snuggled on the couch and played for a while. He's a very happy bird now and I even had no trouble putting him back in his cage, he didn't protest one little bit. Good bird.

Monday 30th March 2009: Wow! What a great time we've had in recent days. Oliver and I have pretty much just been hanging out together at work (home office) and during my breaks. We are spending quite a lot of time together and I know that is the number 1 reason why Oliver is a very happy bird. He happily 'waves' on command - no problem, just does it like it's second nature to him now and he's even added in a little rotation all on his own, which kind of looks like a royal wave haha he's so cute!

Flying: Because I've closed off the home-office to the rest of the house and Oliver's playroom is off my office, he's had heaps of free time out of his cage during the day, with me being right there. His flying is getting so good now and you can just see how happy he is, you can see the exhileration in his expression when he lands after a good fly, navigating his cage, windows (with blinds of course) and walls. I really believe that in order to prevent household accidents with a flying bird, you have to give them plenty of free flying practise - I mean if a bird can't fly then what's the point right! It would be like a dog not being able to wag his tail! Anyway I'm so impressed with Oliver's flying, I'll try to get a good photo next time.

Oliver is such a pig when it comes to corn - any corn; Corn on the cob and even Popcorn! Here's a happy snap of how much of a pig he really is. And he's pretty happy about it too! What a smile!!

And take a look at this next photo.

What do you reckon? Is he posing? I sure think so.

Well that's it for now, catch 'ya later.