Here’s the latest addition to the household. His name is (currently) Larry, the Loro (parrot). While we have said we’d never get a caged bird, Larry qualifies as he was unwanted by his previous owner (one of my teenage students) and we thought we could give him a better life. He’s a funny little thing – and very noisy. He’s fairly angry at the moment, but we only picked him up on Saturday so I guess he’s still getting used to his new house. We’re getting used to him too. At the moment he is living in the bathroom (so he is away from the palaver in the house, but still near enough that he can hear voices and barks etc). I made a mistake, after getting up in the night to spend a penny I forgot to turn the light off, and Larry therefore assumed it was dawn. I returned to bed only to be subjected to Larry’s dawn chorus. Which is horrible – certainly no canary like singing here.
It’s been quite interesting learning about birds. They are obviously little characters in their own right, making different noises and gestures to express feelings. It’s going to take some time to get him settled in. We’re supposed to be leaving him alone for the first three days so he can get used to his new surroundings first, and then get used to us.
If course, it will also take a while for Rosie to stop pointing at the bathroom door to let us know there’s a bird in there. Given that she has spent the last two years pointing to the building next door, I don’t hold out much hope for an early finish on this one!
He is a loro barranquero, which I think is a burrowing parrot, or Patagonian Conure. He will have been hatched in Spain however as it is illegal to bring in live birds.
We now have to find him some toys. He doesn’t have any at the moment and they are supposed to be intelligent birds, and need to be kept amused, so finding him some interesting toys will be nice for him.
Larry ought to be able to learn a few words – and I am assuming this is why Ian was in the bathroom repeating rude words…
We went to the vet today with Herbie, and his mass hasn’t changed. Because it hasn’t got bigger the vet is optimistic that he could still have a good life ahead of him.
PS on the way back from the vet we saw a man with a good sized (for us) bundle of asparagus. Must be due to the mild winter…