Yet Another Journal

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cute budgie stories, cute terrier stories, and anything else I can think of.


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» Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Pidge's Progress
Actually, for a while it was regression.

He blinked and me and raised his wings when I uncovered him yesterday, and James said he just crunched on millet while he ate yesterday morning.

But when I got home, even though I came in the door as quietly as I could, he flapped around the cage and then sat on the rear perch, panting.

Flapping I didn't mind; I'd startled him. Budgies can doze with their eyes closed. But the panting bothered me, especially after all the mouth-breathing Bandit had done for months before he died. Pidge had been so phlegmatic yesterday that it scared me.

So I backed off and eventually he started chirbling again and was letting me talk to him while I stood in front of the cage--then James walked in the door and we started the panting bit all over again.

He was fine after a while. It's hard to describe the cage, but looks a bit like a split level house in that it has a small "upper story." We put a swing up in the peak, secured with a couple of twister seals. (He actually has two swings. James had bought one at the bird show, which I kept thinking was too small. It isn't; Pidge is still tiny. We bought a slightly bigger one, which is the one "up under the eave." The smaller swing Pidge seems to be using as a toy, swinging it back and forth.) Well, we heard a scrabble and a flap, and there was Pidge in the swing. He sat up there most of the night, singing and occasionally preening.

At bedtime I had to go fetch him down; he won't come down for us yet, of course, and after I shut the light he couldn't find his way down. I left a nightlight on for him this time, but he slept on the bottom perch and again blinked gently at me this morning and didn't seem much perturbed. Must try to be a little more quiet this afternoon. Maybe I should come in the front door?--but that would throw my whole pattern off and with my luck I'd put my keys or my badge somewhere I couldn't find them...